Movable Screen Optical Surface Encoder for Curved Specular Surfaces
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for generating light maps of specular surfaces, especially those with curvature, require large and costly displays or multiple displays, leading to increased costs and mechanical complexity, and often result in unmapped areas due to camera occlusion and limited availability of curved displays.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus featuring a movable screen with a latitude-encoding graphic that slides relative to the object, allowing a single camera to capture frames from all positions, enabling efficient coverage and reducing costs by using a single graphic that moves relative to a stationary object.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If a large display is used to cover curved specular surfaces, then coverage is improved, but cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a movable display that can translate and rotate to change its position relative to the camera and object. This dynamic capability allows a single display to cover different portions of the specular surface at different times, eliminating the need for multiple large displays while maintaining comprehensive coverage of curved surfaces.
2Area of stationary object
If multiple displays are arranged around the object, then coverage is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using multiple static displays arranged around the object, the patent uses a single display that moves dynamically to different positions. This approach reduces the number of display components from multiple to one, while the movement capability ensures that all necessary surface areas can be covered sequentially during the measurement process.
3Ease of operation
If the camera is positioned to view the object, then light map acquisition is enabled, but occlusion of parts of the scene occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the display movable rather than fixing the camera position. By translating and rotating the display to different positions relative to the camera and object, the system can illuminate different portions of the specular surface that would otherwise be occluded from the camera's fixed viewpoint, thereby expanding the visible and mappable scene area.
4Ease of manufacture
If a flat display is used, then ease of manufacture is improved, but coverage of curved surfaces is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a flat display that moves dynamically through translation and rotation. This approach maintains the manufacturing simplicity of flat displays while allowing them to cover curved specular surfaces effectively. By changing the display's position and orientation, it can present different portions of its surface to reflect light onto different areas of the curved object, achieving comprehensive coverage without requiring the display itself to be curved.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for cost-effective generation of light maps with improved coverage and reduced mechanical complexity, minimizing occlusion and ambiguity, while accommodating curved surfaces with a single camera setup.
Implementation Method 1
a camera for capturing successive frames of the object during said relative sliding motion of the screen
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus to generate data relating to a specular surface of an object, the apparatus including a screen that is movable relative to the object, a graphic rendered on the screen' wherein the graphic is notionally divided into contiguous segments such that the graphic content in each segment allows that segment to be distinguished from a plurality of other segments, at least one camera for capturing successive frames of the object' illuminated by said graphic, during said relative movement of the screen, and a computing device that accepts data from pixels of the captured frames.