Construction of Laser Plane Rangefinder (LPRF)

The software tool supporting a implementation of a cheap laser plane range finder (LPRF) with rotary table and its calibration is presented. We were motivated by a dual-arm robotic manipulation with soft free-form objects, e.g. a piece of garment. We need a precise surface measurement also as a reference data for the precision estimation of other depth acquiring methods as stereo vision. A laser diode with a cylindrical lens generates a light plane observed by a camera in LPRF. The distance to scene points is obtained by triangulation. As LPRF construction depends on a particular class of objects size and their geometry, the device has to be often built for a new application anew. We prepared a software tool in Python, intended for the public domain, which aids and simplifies the calibration and precision evaluation for such new LPRF constructions. The thesis describes the functionality, calibration procedure, precision evaluation methodology and the implementation. The novelty and gain for the reader are in simplicity and easy use for such a rather frequent application.