Determining surface shape of translucent objects by using laser rangefinder

It remains an open issue to apply traditional techniques to measure 3D shape of a translucent object. This paper describes a 3D shape measurement method which expanded applicable objects and applicable condition compared to existing methods. The proposed method differs from existing methods in that the method uses the multiple scattering lights which traveled in the object. We conducted a simulation on ray tracying for translucent objects. We proposed a new measurement method for measuring 3D shape of translucent objects based on the simulation results. The key points is to determine a depth of the position of the exitant light by detecting a 2D position and a direction vector of the light produced a maximum intensity with two cameras and a half-mirror. From experimental results, it was verified that the proposed method is possible to accurately estimate 3D shape for translucent objects.