Patent ID: 7901095

Claim:
A method for calibrating a projector-camera system having at least one digital projector and one digital camera, said digital projector having an array of projector pixels arranged into of rows and columns, and said digital camera having an array of sensor pixels, said method comprising at least one processing unit to execute the following steps: generating a matrix of light transport values arranged into distinct images, each of said distinct images having a one-to-one correlation with a single corresponding projector pixel within said array of projector pixels, wherein each light transport value has a zero value or has a non-zero value; applying a row scanning process on each row of said array of projector pixels, said row scanning process including: (a) consecutively checking each projector pixel along a row to determine if the distinct image within said matrix corresponding to the projector pixel currently being checked has at least one non-zero value, if it does have at least one non-zero value then labeling the projector pixel currently being checked as a non-zero (NZ) projector pixel, and if it does not then labeling the projector pixel currently being checked as a missing (M) projector pixel; (b) grouping consecutive M projector pixels into missing (MS) segments; (c) grouping consecutive NZ projector pixels into non-zero (NZS) segments; (d) identifying each MS segment adjoined by a first NZS segment at one end of the MS segment and adjoined by a second NZS segment at the opposing end of the MS segment, conditionally labeling the MS segment as a candidate row-pixel segment; (e) for each candidate row-pixel segment, using the non-zero light transport values of a first distinct image corresponding to a first NZ projector pixel that adjoins a first end of the candidate row-pixel segment and the non-zero light transport values of a second distinct image corresponding to a second NZ projector pixel that adjoins a second end of the candidate row-pixel segment opposite said first end, to generate a new distinct image having at least one non-zero light transport value for each projector pixel within said candidate row-pixel segment, and replacing within said matrix the existing distinct image corresponding to each projector pixel within said candidate row-pixel segment with its generated new distinct image.