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Published May 1998 | public
Book Section - Chapter

3D photography using shadows

Abstract

A simple and inexpensive approach for extracting the three-dimensional shape of objects is presented. It is based on `weak structured lighting;' it differs from previous structured lighting approaches in that it requires little hardware besides the camera: a light source (a desk-lamp or the sun), a stick and a checkerboard. The object, illuminated by the light source, is placed on a stage composed of a ground plane and a back plane; the camera faces the object. The user moves the stick in front of the light source, casting a moving shadow on the scene. The 3D shape of the object is extracted from the spatial and temporal location of the observed shadow. Experimental results are presented on three different scenes (indoor with a desk lamp and outdoor with the sun) demonstrating that the error in reconstructing the surface is less than 0.5% of the size of the object.

Additional Information

© 1998 IEEE. Date of Current Version: 06 August 2002. This work is supported in part by the California Institute of Technology; an NSF National Young Investigator Award to P.P.; the Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering funded by the National Science Foundation at the California Institute of Technology; and by the California Trade and Commerce Agency, Office of Strategic Technology.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023