Infrared and Laser Engineering, Volume. 54, Issue 1, 20240390(2025)

Line structured light calibration method based on binocular stereo vision

Xingxu YAN1, Hubing DU1, Hui WANG1, Bo TANG1, Gaopeng ZHANG2、*, and Jinge JIA3
Author Affiliations
  • 1School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xi 'an University of Technology, Xi' an 710021, China
  • 2Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710119, China
  • 3Xi'an Future Intelligent Manufacturing Digital Technology Co., LTD., Xi' an 710000, China
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    ObjectiveHigh accuracy and precision 3D measurement have been extensively employed for industrial inspection, object three-dimensional reconstruction and reverse engineering. Many methods can be used to achieve the objective. Among then, line-structured light technique is regarded as a representative of the techniques of this kind owing to their advantages of high accuracy, high robustness, rapid speed, non-contact, and low cost. However, the existing line-structured light method suffers from calibration difficulties and low calibration accuracy in applications. In this regard, this paper establishes an efficient and reliable calibration method for laser plane equation by combining a binocular vision system with a target with fixed feature points.MethodsThe measurement system consists of a camera and a structured light projector. During the task of measurement, the light projector projects the laser stripe on the object to be measured, and the image is collected by the detector. the three-dimensional coordinates of the object are obtained based on the principle of laser triangulation if the pixel coordinate position is laser stripe centers obtained through image processing. Specifically, the calibration process of the line structured light vision system includes camera calibration and laser planes calibration. For the camera calibration, which mainly involves calculating the internal and external parameter matrix of the imaging system and the aberration coefficient, the process is considered more mature and can be well done by Zhang’s method because of its high calibration accuracy, flexibility, and low cost. The calibration process of line-structured light 3D measurement system is as follows: 1) The line laser emits line-structured light stripes, which project the light plane onto the target’s surface to produce the left and right calibration images; 2) The camera acquires the calibration images and extracts the feature points of the structured light contour from the light knife of the left and right calibration images; 3) Calculation of 3D coordinates corresponding to 2D coordinates of the feature points by matching the corresponding feature points on the left and right images; 4) Fitting the laser plane with the least-squares algorithm using the 3D coordinates of the feature points obtained by the calibration images of different positions of target.Results and Discussions The calibration of the exact relative position between the camera and the structured light projector or the light plane equation of the linear structured light projector in the camera coordinate system is vital for line-structured light system. Therefore, the performance of the linear structured light technology largely depends on the calibration accuracy of the light planes.Many feasible methods have been done by researchers for this end, which can be divided into three categories based on the type of calibration target used: 3D, 2D, and 1D methods. Compared to 3D targets, which it is possible to calibrate the light plane with at least one image, 2D and 1D targets are easier to handle and have lower production costs, making them more suitable for on-site calibration despite they cannot complete the light plane calibration with only one image. Other side, the method based on 1D target is highly susceptible to random errors, leading to unstable calibration results. So, the study of 2D based calibration method becomes a hot spot of line-structured light three-dimensional measurement technique in recent year. However, the existing line structured light calibration method has problem such as complex calibration process, limited feature points, the larger extraction error of the center point and low calibration accuracy in application. In other word, the obtain the desired depth information directly. With the technique to obtain the depth information, the constraint relationship of measurement system must be established to overcome the ill posed problem. The process is crucial but full of uncertainty, as the constraint relationship can greatly affect the accuracy and speed of calibration. By contrast, the binocular vision method can calculate the coordinates of the points on the stripe using the binocular intersection algorithm but without the establishment of the constraint relationship of measurement system. Inspired by the technique, we developed a flexible line structured light calibration method based on binocular vision technique. We also manufacture a target by gumming multiple black stripes to a white planar board (Fig.4). If the line laser emits line-structured light stripes and projects the light plane onto our target’s surface, we can get lots of feature points from the acquired contour image (Fig.8 and Fig.9). Assuming that the additional camera is calibrated under the detector’s coordinate system, The proposed method only requires the detector, along with an additional camera, to observe a planar board (assumed to be a perfectly plane) at a few (at least two) different unknown position (Fig.10). Feature point matching by light bar center extraction from left and right calibration images (Fig.1). Calibration of the line structured light vision system can be completed (Fig.11).ConclusionsTo evaluate the performance of the proposed method, the measurement system is calibrated by this method. It shows that the proposed method is simple, easy to operate, has the advantages of abundant feature points and high calibration accuracy. Using standard block as sample, we conducted depth measurement experiments. Compared with the typical calibration methods, our method is significantly better than the traditional structured light calibration methods. Moreover, the measurement accuracy of our method is improved by 10 μm compared with the measurement results of existing commercial line laser sensors.

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    Xingxu YAN, Hubing DU, Hui WANG, Bo TANG, Gaopeng ZHANG, Jinge JIA. Line structured light calibration method based on binocular stereo vision[J]. Infrared and Laser Engineering, 2025, 54(1): 20240390

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    Paper Information

    Category: 光电测量

    Received: Aug. 30, 2024

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: Feb. 12, 2025

    The Author Email: ZHANG Gaopeng (zhanggaopeng@opt.ac.cn)

    DOI:10.3788/IRLA20240390

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