Patent Document ID: 8432395
Application ID: 12558414
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for estimating a three-dimensional surface shape of an object having a specular reflective surface, the method comprising: projecting an image pattern on the specular reflective surface; capturing a reflected image pattern from the specular reflective surface by an image capture device; comparing a set of two-dimensional reflected image points in the reflected image pattern to the projected image pattern to generate an estimate of the three-dimensional surface shape of the reflective object; and displaying the estimate of the three-dimensional surface shape of the reflective object, wherein comparing the set of two-dimensional reflected image points in the reflected image pattern to the projected image pattern to generate the estimate of the three dimensional surface shape of the reflective object comprises: generating from the reflected image pattern a binary pixilated image comprising a set of binary pixels, each binary pixel representing a portion of the reflected image pattern, calculating the set of two-dimensional reflected image points from the binary pixilated image, each two-dimensional reflected image point corresponding to a two-dimensional transmitted image point in the projected image pattern and corresponding to a three-dimensional point on the surface of the object, determining a set of three-dimensional vectors, each vector associated with one of the two-dimensional reflected image points and representing a direction from the corresponding three-dimensional point on the surface of the object to the image capture device, and generating the estimate of the three-dimensional surface shape of the reflective object from the set of three-dimensional vectors and a set of the two-dimensional transmitted image points in the transmitted image pattern.