Patent ID: 7657081

Claim:
A system for generating and improving a three dimensional model of an object, the system comprising: a scanner for scanning said object; a data processing subsystem communicating with and controlling said scanner, said subsystem comprising: a scanner controller for controlling said scanner; an acquisition module for receiving scan data from said scanner and for determining a difference between said scan data and scan data from an immediately preceding scan session; an object tracking module for iteratively determining scanner adjustments to be made to said scanner prior to a next scan session for said object, said scanner adjustments being determined based on said model, said tracking module sending said scanner adjustments to said scanner controller; a model update module for creating an initial model which is a representation of a portion of said object and for iteratively updating said model based on previous scans of said object and said difference between said scan data and scan data from an immediately preceding scan session, said update module receiving data on said previous scans from said acquisition module; a model adjustment module for iteratively determining scan adjustments which, when said scan adjustments are applied to previous scan data of said object maximizes a correlation between said previous scan data and said model and thereby compensates for distortions due to relative motion between said object and said scanner and for iteratively adjusting said model based on all of said scan adjustments, said adjustment module providing an adjusted model and said scan adjustments to said object tracking module and to said model update module, said scan adjustments comprising translations and rotations to be applied to scan data.