Patent ID: 7916932

Claim:
A method of 3D depth imaging by transmitting light signals to a measurement target object using a projection means and receiving the light signals reflected from the measurement target object using a receiving means, the method comprising the steps of: a) assigning an address to a transmitting pixel of the projection means and encoding the light signals of the transmitting pixel to carry the address assigned to it; b) restoring one or more addresses of the transmitting pixel embedded in the light signals captured by a receiving pixel of the receiving means; and c) determining a position of the target object surface, which corresponds to the receiving pixel, using the one or more addresses of the transmitting pixel restored from the receiving pixel, wherein step a) comprises the steps of: a1) segmenting a whole set of transmitting pixels into n mutually exclusive subsets; a2) assigning unique codes to each of the n mutually exclusive subsets; a3) recursively applying step a) and step b) to individual subsets generated from the recursion m times to produce m layers of subset hierarch; and a4) concatenating the unique codes of the m subsets in hierarchy to which the transmitting pixel belongs, and wherein step b) comprises the steps of: b1) separating the captured light signals into m sub-signals in such a way that the m sub-signals correspond to their respective layers in the m layers of subset hierarchy; b2) identifying, for each of the m sub-signals, one or more subsets unique codes of which are embedded in the sub-signals; and b3) restoring the addresses by concatenating the one or more subsets unique codes of the m subsets selected from the m layers of subsets corresponding to the m sub-signals.