A robust depth measurement method with optimal trace tracking of structured light using dynamic programming

An algorithm for tracking the trace of structured light is proposed to obtain depth information accurately. The technique is based on the fact that the pixel location of light in an image has a unique association with the object depth. However, sometimes the projected light is dim or invisible due to the absorption and reflection on the surface of the object. A dynamic programming approach is proposed to solve such a problem. In this paper, necessary mathematics for implementing the algorithm is presented and the projected laser light is tracked utilizing a dynamic programming technique. Advantages include 1) the trace remains integrity while many parts of the laser beam are dim or invisible. 2) the dynamic programming basically exploits the parallel processing mechanism; the most likely trace of the laser light can be computed very fast if the proposed structure is implemented in hardware. Experimental results as well as the 3-D restoration are reported.