Patent ID: 8582087

Claim:
A laser projection system, comprising: a laser projector that projects a light beam to the surface of an object and scans that projected light beam over at least a portion of the surface, wherein a portion of the projected light beam is diffusely reflected from the surface back to the system as a feedback light beam; a first optical signal detector that receives the feedback light beam and converts it to an image signal, wherein the projected light beam and the feedback light beam are associated with a given point on the surface and propagate in opposite directions along a common propagation path; a light suppression system for suppressing unwanted light from entering the first optical signal detector; and a computer for comparing the image signal with a corresponding reference signal to produce a measurement of the distance from the laser projector to the object surface, and controlling the system to buck the laser projector into a coordinate system of the object using three or more features on the object, wherein at least one of the three or more features serves as a targetless fiducial point.