US 12,302,003 B2
Method for determining one or more groups of exposure settings to use in a 3D image acquisition process
Øystein Skotheim, Oslo (NO); Henrik Schumann-Olsen, Oslo (NO); Alexey Stepanov, Oslo (NO); Øyvind Janbu, Oslo (NO); Martin Ingvaldsen, Oslo (NO); and Jens T. Thielemann, Oslo (NO)
Assigned to Zivid AS, Oslo (NO)
Appl. No. 17/620,933
Filed by Zivid AS, Oslo (NO)
PCT Filed Jun. 19, 2020, PCT No. PCT/EP2020/067244
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Dec. 20, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/254657, PCT Pub. Date Dec. 24, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 1908935 (GB), filed on Jun. 21, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0329716 A1, Oct. 13, 2022
Int. Cl. H04N 13/254 (2018.01); H04N 13/296 (2018.01); H04N 23/72 (2023.01); H04N 23/73 (2023.01); H04N 13/00 (2018.01)
CPC H04N 23/72 (2023.01) [H04N 13/254 (2018.05); H04N 13/296 (2018.05); H04N 2013/0096 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for determining one or more groups of exposure settings to use in a 3D image acquisition process carried out with an imaging system, the imaging system comprising an image sensor and the 3D image acquisition process comprising capturing one or more sets of image data on the image sensor using the respective groups of exposure settings, wherein the one or more sets of image data are such as to allow the generation of one or more 3D point clouds defining the three-dimensional coordinates of points on the surface(s) of one or more objects being imaged, each group of exposure settings including an exposure time to be used when capturing a respective one of the sets of image data, the method comprising:
(i) identifying, using image data captured on the image sensor, one or more candidate groups of exposure settings;
(ii) for each candidate group of exposure settings:
determining an amount of signal likely to be received in different pixels of the image sensor in the event that the candidate group of exposure settings is used to capture a set of image data for use in the 3D image acquisition process,
determining, based on the amount of signal likely to be received in the different pixels, whether or not the respective pixels would be well-exposed pixels if using the candidate group of exposure settings, wherein a well-exposed pixel is one for which the value of a quality parameter associated with that pixel is above a threshold, wherein the value of the quality parameter for a pixel reflects a degree of uncertainty that would be present in the three dimensional coordinates of a point in a point cloud associated with that pixel, in the event that the point cloud were to be generated using the set of image data captured with the candidate group of exposure settings; and
(iii) selecting, from the one or more candidate groups of exposure settings, one or more groups of exposure settings to be used for the 3D image acquisition process, the selection being such as to maximize the number of pixels in the set N, wherein a pixel will belong to the set N if there is at least one selected group of exposure settings for which the pixel is determined as being a well-exposed pixel,
wherein the selection is carried out subject to the constraint that a sum of the exposure times for the selected group(s) of exposure settings is below a predefined threshold.