  We can only allow human-robot-cooperation in a common work cell if the human
integrity is guaranteed. A surveillance system with multiple cameras can detect
collisions without contact to the human collaborator. A failure safe system
needs to optimally cover the important areas of the robot work cell with safety
overlap. We propose an efficient algorithm for optimally placing and orienting
the cameras in a 3D CAD model of the work cell. In order to evaluate the
quality of the camera constellation in each step, our method simulates the
vision system using a z-buffer rendering technique for image acquisition, a
voxel space for the overlap and a refined visual hull method for a conservative
human reconstruction. The simulation allows to evaluate the quality with
respect to the distortion of images and advanced image analysis in the presence
of static and dynamic visual obstacles such as tables, racks, walls, robots and
people. Our method is ideally suited for maximizing the coverage of multiple
cameras or minimizing an error made by the visual hull and can be extended to
probabilistic space carving.
