Structured Light 3D Reconstruction System Based on a Stereo Calibration Plate

Calibration is a critical step in structured light 3D imaging systems. However, in the traditional calibration process, since the calibration plate is based on a two-dimensional model, the flatness of the calibration plate and the angle of the photo will affect the subsequent stitching steps based on the feature points. The number of photos also affects the calibration results. To improve the calibration accuracy, multiple photos need to be taken. The primary objective of this study was to achieve the simple and fast calibration of system parameters, so a method obtaining a large number of calibration data by homography matrix is presented, and a corresponding stereo target is designed in symmetry. First, using the relationship between the corner coordinates of the left and right parts of the stereo calibration plate and the coordinates of the world coordinate system, the homography matrix of the left and right calibration plates from the image coordinates to the world coordinates is calculated. Second, all the pixels in the stereo calibration plate are matched to the world coordinate system by using the homography matrix. In addition, we also compared the results of this method with those of traditional calibration methods. The experimental results show that the 3D geometric surface of the reconstruction result is smooth, it avoids the missing parts and the visual effect is excellent. Furthermore, the error range of small and complex objects can be reduced to 0.03 mm similar to 0.05 mm. This method simplifies the calibration steps, reduces the calibration costs and has practical application value.