Laser-video scanner calibration without the use of a frame store

A calibration method for a structured light surface scanner is presented. The method uses a model-based calibration, accounting for laser stripe and translation stage alignment, and the internal and external camera parameters. The inclusion of nonlinear radial distortion in the camera model improves its calibration accuracy over a linear model. The method has been designed for laser-video scanner systems that use hardware-based measurement of the illuminated line position, rather than a frame store. Standard camera-based calibration techniques cannot be used for such systems. However, the method is also applicable to systems that use software-based stripe segmentation.