Determining 3D-shape of specular objects by using an encoded grid pattern light source

This paper describes a new method to determine the 3D-shape of objects consisting of specular planar surfaces. This method exploits a light source which is made of a diffuse plane with a grid pattern encoded in an M-sequence and uses a single image of the light source reflected by the objects to acquiring orientations and positions of the surfaces of the objects. When grid lines of the light source are reflected by a specular planar surface and perspectively projected on an image plane, a set of lines vanishing at a point are obtained on the image plane. The orientation of the specular planar surface is determined by using the vanishing point, and the position is determined by using the correspondence between lines on the image and lines on the light source, which is obtained by employing a characteristic regularity of the M-sequence. Before the vanishing points are calculated, the lines on the image are classified and correlated with the surfaces of objects by using slopes and positions of the lines and the regularity of the M-sequence. This method requires only a single image.