MIIRE — Multimedia, Image, Indexing and Recognition

Significant equipments

For 3D research activities, the MIIRE research group utilizes specific equipments and software for 3D-object acquisition and processing. These equipments have been funded by University Lille 1 (Bonus Qualité Recherche 2007) and the Contrat de Projet Etat-Région (CPER) Région Nord-Pas de Calais Ambient Intelligence, or by Telecom Lille 1.

Non-contact 3D Digitizer (Konica Minolta VIVID910)

The VIVID 910 employs laser-beam light sectioning technology to scan workpieces using a slit beam. Light reflected from the workpiece is acquired by a CCD camera, and 3D data is then created by triangulation to determine distance information. The laser beam is scanned using a high-precision galvanometric mirror, and 640 × 480 individual points can be measured per scan. Konica Minolta's unique high-speed image processing chips have been integrated in order to ensure rapid measurement, and this has made it possible to complete measurements in 2.5 seconds (or in as little as 0.3 seconds in FAST mode). In addition to distance data, furthermore, this 3D digitizer can also be used to acquire color image data. Employing a rotating filter to separate the acquired light, the VIVID 910 can create color image data for 640 × 480 points with the same CCD as used for distance data.

Geomagic Studio & Qualify software

Geomagic Studio transforms 3D scan data and polygon meshes into accurate 3D digital models for reverse engineering, product design, rapid prototyping and analysis. The fastest way to convert 3D scan data into parametric models, Geomagic Studio is the first reverse engineering software that directly integrates with all leading mechanical CAD packages. Geomagic Studio offers parametric modeling capabilities as well as features for capturing exact geometry, giving you the power and flexibility to choose the modeling method that works best for your application. Geomagic Qualify enables fast, accurate, graphical comparisons between digital reference models and as-built parts for first-article inspection, production inspection and supplier quality management. Delivering best-in-class reporting capabilities, Geomagic Qualify’s powerful yet simple report designer allows you to design and customize inspection reports to meet the requirements your organization.

The Point Grey Bumblebee2 stereo camera

Bumblebee2 stereo camera works in a similar way to 3D sensing in human vision. It begins with identifying image pixels that correspond to the same point in a physical scene observed by multiple cameras. The 3D position of a point can then be established by triangulation using a ray from each camera. The more corresponding pixels identified the more 3D points that can be determined with a single set of images. Correlation stereo methods attempt to obtain correspondences for every pixel in the stereo image, resulting in tens of thousands of 3D values generated with every stereo image.

MESA SR-3000 ToF camera

At the heart of the camera is an advanced sensor technology employing the time-of-flight (TOF) distance measurement principle. Infrared light from the camera's internal lighting source is reflected by objects in the scene and travels back to the camera, where its precise time of arrival is measured independently by each of tens of thousands of sensor pixels.

Microsoft Kinect

The Kinect sensor consists of an RGB camera, depth sensor, and microphones. It delivers depth information, color data, and skeleton tracking data. The Kinect uses structured light technique to compute a depth map and machine learning to infer body position. The depth map is constructed by analysing a speckle pattern of infrared laser light. A standard CMOS image sensor receives the projected structured infrared (IR) light pattern and processes the IR image and produces an accurate per-frame depth image of the scene. Body parts are inferred used Randomized Decision Forest, learned from over one million training examples. Kinect has been developed for game console, however, this inspiring researchers and developers to offer solutions for using this device within the most common operating systems.

Powerful 3D graphic workstations

Finally, in order to drive the above-cited 3D hardware and run 3D processing software, powerful 3D graphics workstations – such as Alienware laptops and Dell workstations – are mandatory.