A new jump edge detection method for 3D cameras

Edges are a fundamental clue for analyzing, interpreting, and understanding 3D scenes: they describe objects boundaries. Available edge detection methods are not suited for 3D cameras such as the Microsoft Kinect or a time-of-flight camera: they are slow and do not take into consideration the characteristics of the cameras. In this paper, we present a fast jump edge detection technique for 3D cameras based on the principles of Canny´s edge detector. We first analyze the characteristics of the range signal for two different kinds of cameras: a time-of-flight camera (the PMD[vision] CamCube) and the Microsoft Kinect. From this analysis, we define appropriate operators and thresholds to perform the edge detection. Then, we present some results of the developed algorithms for both cameras.