Handheld three-dimensional pipe measurement system with a slit-ray projector

Abstract

We propose a point cloud data acquisition system that employs slit ray projection. In this system, a slit laser projector and a high-resolution CCD camera are connected to a Microsoft Kinect Sensor. The system is sufficiently compact that it can be hand held. In measurements of pipes, the user directs the laser slit ray at the measurement target. Kinect then detects point cloud data while the CCD camera simultaneously detects the laser streak generated on the target surface. The user manually scans the system by directing the laser slit ray along the measurement pipe. The point cloud data obtained by Kinect is used to determine the movement of the system by adjusting overlapping data in consecutive frames using the ICP (Iterative Closest Point) algorithm. This permits the system to be freely scanned. The pipe cross section is estimated from data obtained by the slit-ray projection method. The three-dimensional shape of the pipe is constructed on a computer from the obtained cross sections.