Efficient Background Segmentation and Seed Point Generation for a Single-Shot Stereo System

Single-shot stereo 3D shape measurement is becoming more popular due to its advantages of noise robustness and short acquisition period. One of the key problems is stereo matching, which is related to the efficiency of background segmentation and seed point generation, etc. In this paper, a more efficient and automated matching algorithm based on digital image correlation (DIC) is proposed. The standard deviation of image gradients and an adaptive threshold are employed to segment the background. Scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT)-based feature matching and two-dimensional triangulation are combined to estimate accurate initial parameters for seed point generation. The efficiency of background segmentation and seed point generation, as well as the measuring precision, are evaluated by experimental simulation and real tests. Experimental results show that the average segmentation time for an image with a resolution of 1280 × 960 pixels is 240 milliseconds. The efficiency of seed point generation is verified to be high with different convergence criteria.