Simultaneously measuring 3D shape and colour texture of moving objects using IR and colour fringe projection techniques

Simultaneously measuring the three-dimensional (3D) shape and colour texture of moving objects in real time is becoming increasingly important in many application fields. The existing methods of measuring moving objects have certain disadvantages, such as complicated procedures to build the coordinate transformation between cameras, inaccurate 3D shape data because of the longer capturing time of fringe pattern images, and sensitivity to environmental light due to the projected visible fringe patterns. This paper presents a novel method to capture 3D shape and colour texture information of moving objects simultaneously by combining the infrared (IR) channel and visible channel together. Shape data are calculated from IR fringe patterns to avoid the effect of environmental light on the measured objects. Shape data and colour texture information are simultaneously captured by IR and visible channels of a 2-CCD camera; therefore, these parameters have pixel-to-pixel correspondence without needing any registration. The experimental results on two moving objects indicate that the proposed method can simultaneously obtain 3D shape and colour texture information in a reliable way.