AU2011235980B2

AU2011235980B2 - Device for contactlessly controlling the surface profile of objects

Info

Publication number: AU2011235980B2
Application number: AU2011235980A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Andrey Vladimirovich Klimov; Sergey Vladimirovich Suhovey; Artem Leonidovich Yuhin
Original assignee: A4 Vision SA
Current assignee: Bioscrypt SA
Priority date: 2004-08-12
Filing date: 2011-10-12
Publication date: 2013-01-31
Anticipated expiration: 2025-04-01
Also published as: AU2011235980A1

Abstract

Abstract: The invention relates to the devices for contactlessly measuring surface profiles and can be used for person identification in security systems. The inventive device for contactlessly controlling surface profile comprises a pulse illumination unit which is provided with a transparency and forms a transparency image on an object surface, and image recording unit and a computer. Said device also comprises a control unit which is connected to the image recording unit in the form of a TV camera with field interlacing, the pulse illumination unit and to the computer for synchronizing the illumination of the object surface by said pulse illumination unit with the TV camera field and for synchronizing the image processing by the computer with the TV interlacing. The transparency is embodied in the form of a line screen provided with an aperiodical different width band structure and a uniform transmission along each band, thereby making it possible to identify the sequence of the line screen images on the object surface. t \ - dd N

Description

AUSTRALIA Regulation 3.2 Patents Act 1990 Complete Specification Standard Patent DIVISIONAL APPLICANT: A4 Vision S.A Invention Title: DEVICE FOR CONTACTLESSLY CONTROLLING THE SURFACE PROFILE OF OBJECTS The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me: P:\Commonword9f7\35D1-355005016A4\A20111012 APO - File Paterd Applicationdoc Device for contactlessly controlling the surface profile of objects 5 Field of Engineering the Invention relates to The invention relates to the devices for contactlessly measuring surface profiles and can be used for person identification in security systems. to State of the Art A device for contactless control of the surface profile of objects is known, WO 00/70303 of 23-Nov-2000, comprising of a pulse illumination unit provided with a pulse light source and a transparency, which forms a transparency image on an object surface, an image recording unit and a computer, wherein the operation of the pulse illumination unit 15 is synchronized with the operation of the image recording unit. The disadvantage of this device lies in its inability to contactlessly control surface profiles of moving objects, when it is required to minimize the shift of the transparency image, recorded in the image recording unit, with respect to the corresponding image of the object surface, and a "smear" of images recorded in the recording unit. Besides, this 20 device does not allow controlling the object surface profiles, which randomly appear for a short time in the field of view of the image recording unit. 1 Invention disclosure The invention is aimed at providing a contactless control of the surface profiles of 5 moving objects, which randomly appear and disappear in the field of view of the device. A technical result of utilization of this invention is a periodicity of controlling the surface profile of a moving object as well as increase in control rate and accuracy. This also enables a maximum frequency of controlling the surface profile of a moving object the field sweep frequency of a TV camera. 10 Described technical result is achieved by means of a device for contactless control of the surface profile of objects comprising a pulse illumination unit provided with a pulse light source and a transparency, which forms a transparency image on an object surface; an image recording unit and a computer; and additionally comprising of a control unit, which is connected to the image recording unit realized in the form of a TV camera with field 15 interlacing, to the pulse illumination unit and to the computer for synchronizing the illumination of the object surface by said pulse illumination unit with the TV camera field and for synchronizing the image processing by the computer with TV camera interlacing. In this case, the transparency of the pulse illumination unit can be realized to enable computer to recognize positions of images of its elements on the object surface. This allows for 20 computer compensation for the decline in band image quality due to field interlacing. The transparency can be realized in the form of a line screen provided with an aperiodic different width band structure and a uniform transmission along each band, thereby making it possible to identify the line screen images on the object surface. 25 2 TV camera can be realized with provided capability of changing the field sweep frequency. Brief description of the drawings Figure 1 shows a schematic of the device for contactiess control of the surface profile of 5 objects. Figure 2 shows transparency and its image distorted by the surface profile. Best Embodiment According to the schematic of the device for contactless control of the surface profile of 10 objects shown in Fig. 1, this device comprises a pulse illumination block, which consists of a pulse light source 1, condenser 2, transparency 3 and projection lenses 4, TV camera 5, computer 6 and control unit 7. Control unit 7 is connected to the pulse light source 1, TV camera 5 and computer 6. Optical axes of the projection lenses 4 and those of the TV camera 5 are positioned at an angle a with respect to each other. The image of the transparency 4 distorted by the surface profile 15 of an object, for example, human face, is recorded by the TV camera and transmitted to the computer 6, which computes the height Z of the surface profile for a point with coordinates X,Y using the formula: Z = AY/tan(a), where AY is a measure of image band distortion of the transparency 4 shown in Fig. 2. 20 TV camera 5 is chosen to have field interlacing, i.e. the first half of the field is recorded with an interval between lines, and the second - also with interval between the lines of the field sweep, but with a shift with respect to the lines of the first half of the field. 25 3 During the time of full field recording, the recording unit records the transparency image during the first half-field. To achieve this, the control unit 7 along with the pulse illumination unit and TV camera synchronizes the illumination pulse from the pulse light 5 source 1 with the first half of the field. During the second half of the field, the surface image of an object illuminated with some additional light source (natural or artificial) is recorded. An essential moment is the use of TV camera with field interlacing in combination with pulse illumination unit to record the transparency image, which enables high processing rate. 10 The control unit 7 synchronizes the time of image processing by the computer 6 with the field sweep frequency of TV camera 5. The field sweep frequency is chosen based on anticipated movement rate of an object. Realizing transparency 3 in the form of a linear pattern with aperiodic structure (not shown in Fig. 2) enables improved accuracy of determining the width of the band image, is since relative variation of the bands in the transparency is known. Presence of variable width bands positioned aperiodically with respect to each other provides higher accuracy detection of their distortion orthogonally to the band direction over short period of time. 4

Claims

1. A device for contactlessly determining surface profile of moving objects comprising: a pulse illumination unit including a pulsed light source and a transparency, the pulse 5 illumination unit projecting an image of the transparency onto a surface of an object, the object surface distorting the image of the transparency; an image recording unit that records the distorted image of the transparency, the image recording unit including a camera with field interlacing of a first half-field and a second half-field, the camera having a field sweep frequency associated with movement of 10 the object surface; a computer that processes a surface profile for the object according to the distorted image of the transparency recorded by the image recording unit; and a control unit, wherein the control unit synchronizes illumination pulses from the pulse illumination unit with the first half-field associated with the field interlacing of the 15 camera while the image recording unit records the distorted image of the transparency, and the control unit synchronizes the image processing by the computer with the field sweep frequency of the camera.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the transparency provides a linear pattern 20 including variable width bands positioned aperiodically with respect to each other.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the camera provides variation in field sweep frequency. 25

4. The device of claim 1, wherein during the second half-field, the image recording unit records the object surface illuminated by another light source.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the field sweep frequency is chosen based on an anticipated movement rate of the object. 30 5