Removing vibrations in 3D reconstruction using multiple laser stripes

•A novel method is proposed to remove vibrations in laser-based 3D reconstruction methods.•A mathematical procedure is presented to estimate vibrations based on two or more laser stripes.•Multiple tests have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed procedure with synthetic and real data.•Experimental results show excellent performance for the proposed procedure.•A laser-based 3D reconstruction system with only two stripes clearly outperforms systems with more stripes

Vibrations present a major challenge for accurate 3D reconstruction of moving objects. When the movement of the object is affected by vibrations, the reconstruction system estimates height profiles incorrectly, which leads to major errors in the reconstructed shape of the object. This work proposes a laser-based 3D reconstruction method that uses multiple laser stripes and produces redundant information that can be used to estimate and remove vibrations from the final 3D reconstruction. The effects of vibrations on systems with a single laser stripe are analyzed, and the detailed mathematical procedure to model and to estimate vibrations from multiple stripes is presented. Vibrations are then removed from the reconstructed shape, providing a vibration free result. Different tests are carried out with synthetic and real data with excellent performance. The analysis of the results indicates that a laser-based 3D reconstruction method using two laser stripes has similar or even better performance compared with systems with more stripes. Furthermore, it presents a far more cost efficient solution.