High-Contrast Color-Permutation Patterns for Rapid Range Imaging

For structured-light range imaging, color stripes can be used for increasing the number of distinguishable light patterns compared to binary BW stripes. Therefore, an appropriate use of color patterns can reduce the number of light projections and range imaging is achievable in single video frame or in “one shot”. On the other hand, the reliability and range resolution attainable from color stripes is generally lower than those from multiply projected binary BW patterns since color contrast is affected by object color reflectance and ambient light. This paper presents new methods for selecting stripe colors and designing color-permutation patterns for “one-shot” and “two-shot” imaging. We show that maximizing color contrast between the stripes in one-shot imaging reduces the ambiguities resulting from colored object surfaces and limitations in sensor/projector resolution. Two-shot imaging adds an extra video frame and maximizes the color contrast between the first and second video frames to diminish the ambiguities even further. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented one-shot and two-shot color-stripe imaging schemes.