Low cost structured-light based 3D surface reconstruction

In an increasingly specialized industry with strong demands from end users, product quality plays a key role in industrial manufacturing, where the quality impact highly depends on the final product and its application. An important parameter for quality control is the surface finish of objects, essential for determining their technical suitability. Therefore, measuring the surface levelness can be critical to ensure that the finished material meets the design specifications. In this work, we propose an effective yet low-cost solution using out-of-the-shelf components, which is based on the structured light principle for depth/3D measurements (line laser). By means of laser triangulation, this solution can provide rapid and accurate levelness measurements both in 1D profiles and 2D maps for a relatively wide range of sizes, materials and other conditions. The experimental evaluations show a satisfactory performance with a great trade-off between accuracy and cost, becoming not only a rapid but a cheap solution, making it ideal for quick inspections in diverse environments.