Giovanna Sansoni, Roberto Rodella, Matteo Carocci and Valeria Carbone
The use of optical sensors to evaluate threedimensional
shapes plays an increasingly
important role in a number of applications. One important advantage of optical sensors
is that no contact is required with the object being measured; another is that they are significantly faster than contact probes. Typical industrial applications for optical sensors are production quality control, both in the micro and the macro ranges, the digitization of freeshape surfaces in reverse engineering, and a number of
3-D computer vision problems. Examples of the latter are object manipulation by means of robots and obstacle detection for robotic vehicles. New areas in which optical sensors have been successfully introduced include the measurement and preservation of antiquities, and 3-D virtual reality entertainment products.
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