Time-of-Flight and Structured Light Depth Cameras

This book has been written for a wider audience, including students and practitioners interested in current consumer depth cameras and the data they provide. This book focuses on the system rather than the device and circuit aspects of the acquisition equipment. Processing methods required by the 3D nature of the data are presented within general frameworks purposely as independent as possible from the technological characteristics of the measurement instruments used to capture the data. The results are typically presented by practical exemplifications with real data to give the reader a clear and concrete idea about the actual processing possibilities. This book is organized into three parts, the first devoted to the working principles of ToF and structured light depth cameras, the second to the extraction of accurate 3D information from depth camera data through proper calibration and data fusion techniques, and the third to the use of 3D data in some challenging computer vision applications.