Patent ID: 8900126

Claim:
Apparatus for scanning a three dimensional (‘3D’) object, the apparatus comprising: a otoscanner body having mounted upon it a scanning probe, the scanning probe comprising a laser light source, a laser optical element, a source of non-laser video illumination, a wide-angle lens optically coupled to an image sensor, and an image sensor mounted within the otoscanner body and coupled for data communications to a data processor; a plurality of tracking illumination sensors, the tracking illumination sensors sensing reflections of tracking illumination emitted from a tracking illumination emitter and reflected from tracking fiducials installed at positions that are fixed relative to the scanned object, the tracking illumination sensors also sensing reflections of tracking illumination emitted from the tracking illumination emitter and reflected from tracking targets installed at fixed positions on the otoscanner body; and the data processor configured so that it functions by constructing, in dependence upon a sequence of images captured when a scanned object is illuminated by laser light and tracked positions of the scanning probe inferred from reflections of tracking illumination sensed by the tracking illumination sensors, a 3D image of the scanned object.