Kreon’s scanning technology is based on the laser triangulation principle :
Laser triangulation is an active stereoscopic technique where the distance to the object is computed by means of a directional light source, a laser, and a video camera.
A laser beam is deflected from a mirror onto a scanned object. The object scatters the light, which is then collected by a video camera located at a known triangulation distance from the laser.
It can be observed that the angle and the pixel position of the scattered light are related. Since the focal length of the camera lens is known, the analysis of the resulting video image can determine the angle of the scattered light.
The angle is also known since it is the projection angle of the laser beam.. Knowing the position of the camera and the laser in relation to the object makes it possible, using simple trigonometry, to determine the 3D spatial (XYZ) coordinates of the points of the laserline.
A simple expansion of this technique allows the complete geometry of the object to be captured.
The calibration process creates the link between the cameras video array and a real world metric coordinate system. Creating and applying calibration formulas results in a conversion of the scanners’ video output into points or sections belonging to a 2D metric world.
