Fluorescent immersion range scanning

Abstract

The quality of a 3D range scan should not depend on the surface properties of the object. Most active range scanning techniques, however, assume a diffuse reflector to allow for a robust detection of incident light patterns. In our approach we embed the object into a fluorescent liquid. By analyzing the light rays that become visible due to fluorescence rather than analyzing their reflections off the surface, we can detect the intersection points between the projected laser sheet and the object surface for a wide range of different materials. For transparent objects we can even directly depict a slice through the object in just one image by matching its refractive index to the one of the embedding liquid. This enables a direct sampling of the object geometry without the need for computational reconstruction. This way, a high-resolution 3D volume can be assembled simply by sweeping a laser plane through the object. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our light sheet range scanning approach on a set of objects manufactured from a variety of materials and material mixes, including dark, translucent and transparent objects.