3-D position sensing using a single camera approach

Passive monocular three-dimensional position sensing is made possible by a calibration scheme which relates depth to focus blur through a composite lens and aperture model, and which uses a geometric model of the camera´s position and orientation in space to transform the camera´s imaging coordinates into world coordinates. Position accuracies comparable to those in stereo-based vision systems are possible without the need for solving the difficult point of correspondence problem. This straightforward procedure for measuring blur across sharp edges also makes for a faster and more reliable software implementation