Patent ID: 7768656

Claim:
A system for the 3D measurement of the shape of a material object, comprising: a light projector for projecting a structured light pattern onto a surface of said object, wherein said light projector comprises a light source, a slide with a slide pattern located on a slide surface, and a projector lens characterized by a projector lens vertex; a device for capturing an image of said structured light pattern reflected on said object, wherein said device for capturing an image comprises a device lens characterized by a device lens vertex; and a computing device for determining a measurement relating to the shape of said object using a triangulation algorithm based on a correspondence between points in said slide pattern and said image, and wherein said slide pattern comprises a plurality of coded elements, where each of said coded elements is characterized by at least one parameter and, where said at least one parameter defines a spatial or temporal distribution of an amplitude or a wavelength of said structured light, and wherein said coded elements are assigned to one of at least first group or second group, each of which first group and second group comprising at least two of said coded elements, and wherein at least a first slide virtual line and a second slide virtual line are defined on said slide surface, where said first slide virtual line is defined by an intersection between said slide surface and a first plane passing through said projector lens vertex and through said device lens vertex, and said second slide virtual line is defined by an intersection between said slide surface and a second plane passing through said projector lens vertex and through said device lens vertex, and wherein said coded elements of said first group are located along said first virtual line and said coded elements of said second group are located along said second virtual line.