Patent ID: 7257249

Claim:
A discrete linear space sampling method for generating digital 3D models comprising: acquiring a plurality of digital images of a subject from a respective plurality of image sensor positions near to an image sensor location; identifying candidate 3d-spels from the acquired digital images, each 3d-spel being an image pixel corresponding to a common point on said subject, and each 3d-spel corresponding to a pair of acquired pixels, the first acquired pixel of the pair of acquired pixels being selected from one of the plurality of acquired images and the second acquired pixel of the pair of acquired pixels being selected from one of the remaining of the plurality of acquired images; rejecting candidate 3d-spels based on a differential analysis of the candidate 3d-spels, the remaining 3d-spels forming a set of accepted 3d-spels; and, calculating 3D coordinates for each accepted 3d-spel, thereby forming a point-cloud of the subject.