Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Optics and Lasers in Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlaseng

Removing vibrations in 3D reconstruction using multiple laser stripes

Rubn Usamentiaga n, Julio Molleda, Daniel F. Garcia, Francisco G. Bulnes
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Oviedo, Campus de Viesques, 33204 Gijn, Asturias, Spain

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 24 June 2013
Received in revised form
15 July 2013
Accepted 6 August 2013
Available online 13 September 2013

Vibrations present a major challenge for accurate 3D reconstruction of moving objects. When the
movement of the object is affected by vibrations, the reconstruction system estimates height proles
incorrectly, which leads to major errors in the reconstructed shape of the object. This work proposes a
laser-based 3D reconstruction method that uses multiple laser stripes and produces redundant
information that can be used to estimate and remove vibrations from the nal 3D reconstruction. The
effects of vibrations on systems with a single laser stripe are analyzed, and the detailed mathematical
procedure to model and to estimate vibrations from multiple stripes is presented. Vibrations are then
removed from the reconstructed shape, providing a vibration free result. Different tests are carried out
with synthetic and real data with excellent performance. The analysis of the results indicates that a laserbased 3D reconstruction method using two laser stripes has similar or even better performance
compared with systems with more stripes. Furthermore, it presents a far more cost efcient solution.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Vibrations
3D reconstruction
Laser triangulation
Geometric transformations

1. Introduction
3D reconstruction is one of the most widely studied and
fundamental problems in computer vision [1]. Many different
methods have been explored to acquire 3D information from
objects. These methods can be classied as active or passive [2].
Active methods use an external light source, while passive
methods are not based on any specic light source. Among passive
methods, stereo vision [3] is the most commonly used method.
Other passive methods are based on shape detection using the
shade, texture or motion of the object [4]. Active methods are
more commonly used in 3D reconstruction because they produce
better results. Structured [5] and laser light [6] are two types of
light sources used in active methods, with laser being the most
common. In laser-based 3D reconstruction methods, a laser stripe
is projected over an object. Then, the system acquires images of
the projection while the object or the laser stripe is moved
forward. The projection of the stripe is deformed according to
the shape of the object it is illuminating. Thus, using optical
triangulation it is possible to calculate 3D information about the
shape of the object.
Laser-based 3D reconstruction methods are used for many
different applications, such as buildings [7], road surface [8], steel
strips [9], train rails [10], or weld seams [11]. In these environments, where surrounding light and laser power is not fully

Corresponding author. Tel.: 34 985 182626; fax: 34 985 181986.

E-mail addresses: rusamentiaga@uniovi.es,
usamen@gmail.com (R. Usamentiaga).
0143-8166/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2013.08.001

controlled, laser-based 3D reconstruction methods suffer from

accuracy and robustness problems [12]. Accuracy is signicantly
affected by the extraction of the laser stripe from the images.
Previous works have focused on this problem proposing different
alternatives [1316].
Another major issue affecting accuracy in laser-based 3D
reconstruction methods is vibrations. These 3D reconstruction
methods are based on the acquisition images of the laser projection while either the object or the laser is moved forward. This
movement can be affected by vibrations, resulting in an incorrect
estimation of height proles that propagates to 3D reconstruction.
When the environment cannot be totally controlled, for example
the movement of a train rail on a roll path, the effects of vibrations
lead to major errors.
One possible approach to remove or reduce the effects of
vibrations in 3D reconstruction is based on using previous knowledge about the object or about the types of vibrations affecting the
movement of the object. If the shape of the object is known a priori, a
set of points in one height prole and the correspondent points in
the next prole can be used to estimate the type of vibration and to
remove its effects on 3D reconstruction. For example, this approach
has been used when the shape of the object consists of two
approximately straight lines connected by a round corner [17].
Another option is based on applying knowledge about the type of
vibrations. For example steel strips are known to be composed of
bers with different wavelengths. However, these bers have a
known minimum wavelength of approximately 0.5 m. Everything
below this limit is considered the resulting effect from vibrations.
Thus, a low-pass lter with an adequate cutoff frequency can be used
to remove this kind of vibrations from steel strips [18].

52

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

When the object has a known shape, for example a perfect

plane, 3D reconstruction is not really necessary. However, laserbased triangulation can be used to characterize vibrations [19,20].
These methods estimate vibrations from the relative depth variations. A similar approach can be used with laser Doppler vibrometry [21,22]. In this case, vibrations are estimated from the
Doppler shift of the reected laser beam frequency. All these
methods assume a static shape of the object, i.e., the shape does
not change over time. Thus, only vibrations are responsible for
variations in measurements. When the shape of the object
changes, these methods are not applicable.
A known shape of the object or a known type of vibrations
could be considered 3D reconstruction invariants. When these
invariants do not exist these procedures to remove vibrations are
not possible. Therefore, in order to remove vibrations new invariants need to be created.
This work proposes a method to remove vibrations in 3D
reconstruction based on using multiple laser stripes. When more
than one laser stripe is used, a new invariant is created: the
displacement from one laser stripe to the next is not dependent on
vibrations, but only on the shape of the object. Therefore, the real
shape of the object can be obtained without the interference of
vibrations. However, the exact number of stripes needed depends
on the complexity of the vibrations. When vibrations only consist
of vertical translations, two laser stripes are required. On the other
hand, when vibrations are a combination of vertical translations
and rotations, three laser stripes are required. More than three
laser stripes produce an over-determined system that delivers a
more robust solution. In this work all these possibilities are
analyzed and the mathematical procedures to remove vibrations
in these cases are developed. Then, the proposed procedure is
applied to synthetic and real data. The accuracy of the results is
discussed with and without noisy data and compared with the
benets of using more than two laser stripes. Results indicate that
a laser-based 3D reconstruction method using two laser stripes
presents a far more cost efcient solution than other approaches,
also with similar performance.

2. Modeling vibrations
Vibrations are periodic or random motion from an equilibrium
position. In the case of laser-based 3D reconstruction methods,
vibrations are an undesirable phenomenon that produces movements of the object as it moves forward. The consequences of
these vibrations are particularly harmful for 3D reconstruction
because the projection of the stripe is not only deformed due to
the shape of the object itself but also due to the movement of the
object caused by vibrations. Therefore, the 3D reconstruction of an
Laser projector

object with a at surface could result in an object with a wavy

surface, as can be seen in Fig. 1. In a different scenario, it is the
laser projector that moves and is affected by vibrations, for
example in a robot arm. However, the result is the same but from
a different point of view. In this work, vibrations are considered
from the point of view of a moving object, although it would be
equivalent from the point of view of a moving laser projector.
The two types of vibrations affecting laser-based 3D reconstruction methods are translations and rotations. Translations are vertical
movements of the object similar to bouncing, while rotations are
semi-circular movements of the object around a pivot position
similar to rocking. These vibrations occur while the object moves
forward. The two types of vibrations can be present at the same time,
although translations are much more common than rotations.
The type of translations depends on the way the object is
moved. When the object is moved using a conveyor belt, translations can appear as random vertical movements without a pattern.
On the other hand, semi-sinusoidal translations can appear if the
object hits the conveyor belt periodically. When the object is not
actually touching the ground, for example when moving a sheet of
paper, vibrations can show a sinusoidal pattern while the object
moves forward along a roll path, upwards and downwards.
Fig. 2 shows the resulting effect of translations in 3D reconstruction when a single laser stripe is used. The gure shows a
simplied example with one single point from a side view. In this
case the object moves forward while it is affected by vibrations, in
particular with translations. In t1 a new point is acquired, but its
position not only depends on the shape of the object but also on
the vertical translation from t0 to t1. In t2 and t3 new points are
acquired that are used to create a reconstruction of the shape of
the object. However, the resulting reconstruction is corrupted due
to the vertical translations, as can be seen in the gure.
Rotations are less common because they only occur when the
object is held at two distant points along the length of the object,
such as steel strips. In these cases, the movement of the object can
be affected by rotations around a pivot position, perpendicular to
the movement.
The two types of vibrations can be described using a mathematical model based on geometric transformations. The mathematical principles are described next.

2.1. Geometric transformations

There are four classes of geometric transformations. These
classes can be described in terms of those elements or quantities
that are preserved or invariant, such as for example the distance or
the angle. Also, they form a hierarchy of transformations, where a
class extends the previous class.
Camera

3D
reconstruction
Rotations

Movement
of the object

Translations

Fig. 1. General architecture for laser-based 3D reconstruction methods with one single laser stripe.

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

53

Height

t0

Length

t1
Height

Vertical
translation

Movement

Length

t2
Height

Vertical
translation

Movement

Length

t3
Height

Vertical
translation

Reconstruction

Movement

Real
shape
Length

Fig. 2. Effects of vibrations in laser-based 3D reconstruction with one single laser stripe.

Isometry is the most basic class. This class of transformation

preserves the Euclidean distance. When the isometry also preserves the orientation it is called Euclidean transformation. This
type of isometry is a composition of translation and rotation.
Euclidean transformations model the motion of rigid objects.
The second class of transformation is similarities. A similarity
transformation is an isometry composed with an isotropic scaling
(uniform scaling in all axes). This class of transformation does not
preserve the distance, but the ratio of two lengths.
An afne transformation is an extended version of a similarity
transformation with an anisotropic scaling added (different scaling
for each axis). This class of transformation preserves the ratio of
areas and parallel lines. Angles are not preserved, so that shapes
are skewed under the transformation.
The fourth class is projective transformations. This class generalizes an afne transformation by considering the non-linear
effects of the projection. The projective invariant is the cross ratio
of lengths on a line.
These classes of geometric transformations are composed of
simple transformations, such as translation, rotation, or reection.
Translation is not linear in 2D, i.e., it cannot be represented with
2  2 matrix. Thus, homogeneous coordinates are used by adding a
third coordinate. A 2D point, P x; y, is transformed to homogeneous coordinates using

x
y

0 1
x
B C
-P @ y A

In homogeneous coordinates, a translation can be expressed

using (2), where tx and ty are the horizontal and vertical translations, respectively
0
1
1 0 tx
B
C
T @ 0 1 ty A
2
0 0 1
Scaling can be expressed using (3), where s is the scaling factor,
in this case equal for both axes
0
1
s 0 0
B
C
S@0 s 0A
3
0 0 1
Rotation can be expressed using (4), where is the rotation
angle
0
1
cos  sin 0
B
C
R @ sin
4
cos 0 A
0

These three translations can be combined into a single matrix,

H, using matrix multiplication (5). H represents a similarity
transformation. Removing the scale parameter would result in
Euclidean transformation. These combined transformations are
applied from right to left
0
1
s cos s sin t x
B
C
H T  S  R @ s sin s cos t y A
5
0

54

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

Laser projectors

Any point could be transformed using (6), which produces

Eqs. (7) and (8)
10 1
0 1 0
x
x
s cos s sin t x
CB C
B C B
P V  P-@ y A @ s sin s cos t y A@ y A
6
1
1
0
0
1
x x  s  cos y  s  sin tx

y x  s  sin y  s  cos t y

Camera

3D
reconstruction

Rotations

Movement
of the object

Translations

Fig. 3. Improved architecture for laser-based 3D reconstruction methods.

2.2. Modeling vibrations based on geometric transformations

Two types of vibrations affect objects while they are moved or
transported under the laser stripe: translations and rotations.
Translations are vertical movements of the object while it is being
moved. This type of vibrations could be modeled using the
translation matrix (9), where ty represents the vertical movement
0
1
1 0 0
B
C
T @ 0 1 ty A
9
0 0 1
The other type of vibrations considered is rotations. This type of
vibrations occurs on exible objects, such as steel strips or paper
sheets. Rotations are semi-circular movements of the object
around a pivot position. This type of vibrations could be modeled
using the rotation matrix using (4), where represents the
rotation angle. However, this transformation is only valid when
the pivot position is at the origin. When the rotation is not carried
out around the origin but around a pivot point xp ; yp , it is
necessary to perform previously a translation from the pivot point
to the origin, a rotation, and nally a translation from the origin
back to the pivot point. The process can be expressed with a
combination of two translations and one rotation matrix using
10
0
10
1
1 0 xp
1 0 xp
cos  sin 0
CB
B
CB
C
R @ 0 1 yp A@ sin
10
cos 0 A@ 0 1 yp A
0 0 1
0 0
1
0
0
1
A particular type of vibration V composed of translation and
rotation can be modeled as a combination of (9) and (10), using
matrix multiplication
0
1
cos  sin
xp cos t y yp sin xp
B
C
V R  T @ sin
cos xp sin t y yp cos yp A
0

11
A point P over the surface of an object with vibrations V is
transformed using (12), which produces Eqs. (13) and (14)
P V  P

12

x x cos y sin xp cos t y yp sin xp

13

y x sin y cos xp sin t y yp cos yp

14

These equations create a model for vibrations that determines

the transformation of points in space. The model is parametrized
by four values: , xp, yp, and ty.

3. Estimating vibrations
The model for vibrations is based on four unknown values: ,
xp, yp, and ty. Without a priori information about the shape of the
object or about the type of vibrations it is not possible to estimate
these values. The proposed procedure in this work is to use

multiple laser stripes. This provides redundant information that

can be used to estimate vibrations, and thus, to remove them.
The proposed architecture can be seen in Fig. 3. The projections
of the laser stripes on the object are very close. Thus, the movement of the object caused by vibrations affects the deformation of
the laser stripes equally. When the object moves forward, a new
image is acquired. In the new image some of the laser stripes are
projected at the same position as the previous image. The shape of
the object in these two images is the same; the difference is only
caused by vibrations. Therefore, this redundant information can be
used to estimate vibrations.
Fig. 4 shows how two laser stripes can be used to remove
vertical translations. Again, the gure shows a side view with one
longitudinal line, but the idea is the same with more points. In t0
two points are acquired. The vertical distance between these two
points, P 0 t 0 and P 1 t 0 , only depends on the shape of the object.
Later in t1, after the object is moved, two new points are acquired,
P 0 t 1 and P 1 t 1 . The point P 0 t 1 should be in the same position as
P 1 t 0 , but a vertical translation has modied it. The vertical
translation can be estimated by subtracting P 0 t 1 from P 1 t 0 .
The resulting value, V t 1 is the vertical translation from t0 to t1.
This vertical translation has affected P 0 t 1 and P 1 t 1 equally,
therefore vibrations can be removed in P 1 t 1 by adding Vt 1 ,
which results in PP 1 t 1 . In t2 a new vertical translation occurs. This
new vertical translation, Vt 2 , is estimated as P 1 t 1 P 0 t 2 . Now,
vibrations in P 1 t 2 are removed by adding Vt 2 and also Vt 1 , i.e.,
PP 1 t 2 P 1 t 2 Vt 1 Vt 2 . If V t 1 Vt 2 is called VVt 2 , then
PP 1 t 3 would be calculated as P 1 t 3 VVt 2 Vt 3 . For a general
case, the position of a point PP 1 t i without vibrations is calculated
as P 1 t i VVt i1 Vt i . This procedure completely removes
vertical translations, producing a perfect reconstruction of the
shape of the object. For more complex vibrations that include
rotations more than two laser stripes are required. The mathematical procedure is described next.

3.1. Estimating vibrations with three or more laser stripes

In (12) there are four unknown values: , xp, yp, and ty. These
values dene the vibration. In order to calculate these four values
four equations are needed. These four equations can be created
from two points, P 1 x1 ; y1 and P 2 x2 ; y2 , and from the
obtained values after the vibration has transformed their positions
and they are acquired again, P 1 x1 ; y1 and P 2 x2 ; y2 . This
means that at least three laser stripes are required, so that two
points are measured twice, as can be seen in Fig. 3. Each pair of
points produces two equations, one for x and one for y. Therefore,
with the two pairs of points four equations are generated.
Gathering all values, model (15) can be written as
0

x1
B
@ y1
1

1
0
x1
x2
C
B
y2 A V @ y1
1
1

x2

C
y2 A
1

15

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

55

Height

t0

Length

t1
Height

Vertical
translation

Movement

Length

t2
Height

Vertical
translation

Movement

Length

t3
Height

Vertical
translation

Real
shape

Movement

Reconstruction

Length

Fig. 4. Removing vibrations in laser-based 3D reconstruction using multiple stripes.

The system of equations in model (15) is non-linear and cannot

be solved analytically. Therefore, it is not an appropriate model for
fast and accurate computation. However, it can be transformed
into a linear system by creating a set a intermediate variables. Four
variables are created, V1, V2, V3, and V4, which correspond to
V 1 cos

16

V 2 sin

17

V 3 xp cos t y yp sin xp

18

V 4 xp sin t y yp cos yp

19

Substituting (16)(19) in (11) produces (20). Using this denition of V, a point P x; y over the surface of an object with
vibrations V is transformed using (21), which produces Eqs. (22)
and (23)
0
1
V 1 V 2 V 3
B
C
V1
V4 A
V @ V2
20

The unknown values in (22) and (23) are V1, V2, V3, and V4.
Thus, these equations can be transformed into (24) and (25). These
equations can be expressed in matrix form, as shown in (26)
xV 1 yV 2 V 3 x

24

yV 1 xV 2 V 4 y

25

y

V1

C
0 B
B V2 C
B
C
1 @ V3 A
V4

x
y

!
26

21

The unknown values V1, V2, V3, and V4 can be calculated with
two points, P 1 x1 ; y1 and P 2 x2 ; y2 , and from the obtained
values after the vibration has transformed their positions,
P 1 x1 ; y1 and P 2 x2 ; y2 . The nal system of equations is
shown
0 1
0
1
x1 y1 1 0 0 V 1 1
x1
B
C
C
C B
x1
0 1 CB
y
V
B
B y1
2
C B 1C
B
CB
27
CB C
C
B x2 y2 1 0 CB
@
A@ V 3 A @ x 2 A

x2
0 1
y2
y2
V4

x V 1 xV 2 y V 3

22

Gathering all the unknown parameters into a column vector,

model (27) can be rewritten as (28), where X V 1 ; V 2 ; V 3 ; V 4 T

y V 2 x V 1 y V 4

23

AX B

0
0

1
1

V1

B C B
P V  P-@ y A @ V 2
0
1

V 2
V1
0

10 1
x
CB C
V 4 A@ y A
1
1
V3

28

56

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

The system of equations in (28) is linear and can be solved as

1

XA

29

When the system is solved, the unknown value can be

determined using (30). The values of xp, yp, and ty cannot be
calculated directly. Instead, global values for translation in both
axes, t x and t y , are calculated as (31) and (32). Although the nal
values of xp, yp, and ty are unknown, the model for the vibrations V
is perfectly dened. Thus, the transformation of the points in space
due to vibrations is known, and it can be reversed

tan

1

V2
V1

30

t x V 3

31

t y V 4

32

This procedure could also be applied to estimate a similarity

transformation. In this case the scale parameter, s, could be
calculated as
q
s V 11 V 22
33
To calculate the unknowns in the transformation matrix V, at
least two pair of points are needed. However, more than two
points could also be used. In this case, matrix A would have more
rows than columns and the systems of equations in (28) cannot be
directly solved. With the purpose of minimizing the distances, the
least square solution for the parameter vector X can be computed
by
X AT A1 AT B

34

Solving the least square problem using (34) could lead to

numerical instabilities [23]. In general, an orthogonal decomposition is preferred. These methods are slower but more numerically
stable. An alternative decomposition for X is the singular value
decomposition (SVD) [24]. This method is the most computationally intensive, but is particularly useful if round-off errors could
create singularity problems in matrix X.
3.2. Estimating vibrations with only two laser stripes
When only two laser stripes are used, translations and rotations cannot be estimated because there is only one point
measured twice. A single point can be used to create two
equations, which are not enough to calculate the four unknown
values. However, this point can be used to estimate translations
and assume that there are no rotations. In this case, vibrations can

be modeled with a single translation matrix as follows:

0
1
1 0 0
B
C
V T @ 0 1 ty A
0 0 1

35

In order to estimate the translation with P 1 x1 ; y1 and from

the obtained value after the vibration has transformed its position,
P 1 x1 ; y1 , (36) could be used
t y y1 y1

36

When three or more laser stripes are used there is a possibility

that the system of equations does not have a solution, that is, the
coefcient matrix is singular, for example due to repeated points.
In this case, vibrations could be estimated the same as when using
only two laser stripes, only translations are taken into account.

4. Results and discussion

In order to assess the proposed procedure, several experiments
have been carried out. First, a synthetic object was created. The
object contains a low frequency curve at the center and high
frequency curves at the edges, as can be seen in Fig. 5(a). Different
types of vibrations were added to the object. The resulting 3D
reconstructions using a single laser stripe are shown in Fig. 5(b)
(d). Fig. 5(b) shows the object with uniformly distributed random
translations of 3% of the object height (Rand). Fig. 5(c) shows the
object with rotations of 0.51 around the center of each prole
(Rot). Fig. 5(c) shows the object with a combination of sinusoidal
translations and rotations with same amplitudes as before
(SinRot). These types of vibrations have been used because they
are common in many applications.
In order to test the proposed procedure, it is assumed that
there are multiple laser stripes available for 3D reconstruction.
When only two laser stripes are used, only translations are
estimated and removed. The difference between the original and
the reconstructed shape of the object is assessed with the mean
absolute error (MAE) using (37), where n is the number of points,
Hi is the height at point i, and Ri is the reconstructed height at
point i. This value is normalized using (37), where Hmax is the
maximum height. This error value is a percentage over the
maximum height of the object, and it is independent from the
specic height of the object
MAE

1 n
jH R j
ni1 i i

37

Fig. 5. Synthetic vibrations used for tests. (a) Real shape of the object. (b) Shape of the object after adding random translations. (c) Shape of the object after adding rotations.
(d) Shape of the object after adding sinusoidal translations and rotations.

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

MAE
H max

38

Table 1 shows the error when using two, three and four laser
stripes with different types of vibrations. The error in all cases is
very low. Most errors are around 1e14, which is very close to the
representation error of real numbers and it can be considered as
zero (no error). In the case of random translations, the error is null
in all cases. When rotations are added and three or more stripes
are used the error is also null. However, when only two stripes are
used the error increases. The obtained errors with two stripes are
still very low and can be considered negligible for most applications. The results show that there is no difference between only
rotations and translations plus rotations.
The obtained errors with two stripes are very low. The reason is
that estimating only translations removes most of the vibrations,
even when there are rotations. This can be clearly seen with an
example. Let us suppose there are two points with these values:
P 1 5; 5 and P 2 5; 5:1. Then, the position of these points is
measured after vibrations with ty 1 and 0:251 (around the
origin) transform the positions of the points. The result is
P 1 4:973; 6:021 and P 2 4:973; 6:121. If only one point is
used to estimate vibrations (P1 and P 1 , two laser stripes), the result
would be ty 1.021 and 0. Removing this vibration from P 2
results in a height of 5.099, that is, the error compared to P2 is
1:8e05. This error depends on the rotation and also on the
proximity of the height of P1 and P2. However, consecutive points
tend to be very close and the rotations in vibrations are low. Thus,
this indicates that for most applications two laser stripes could be
enough.
Fig. 6 shows the differences between the real object and the
reconstructed object using two and three laser stripes when
vibrations consisting of sinusoidal translations and rotations are
added. As can be seen, with two stripes errors appear at the center
and at the edges, where there are curves in the object. However,
these errors are lower than 1e05, negligible in most cases.
The error when using two laser stripes depends on the degrees
of rotation. Fig. 7 shows the error for different degrees. As can be
seen, the error increases, but the value for 601 is still low.
Moreover, 601 is an unrealistic high value in real applications.
The proposed procedure assumes that the same points in an
image are acquired again in the next image in a different laser stripe
with accuracy. However, repeatedly measuring points always incur in
measurement errors due to acquisition uncertainties and noise.
Table 2 shows the error when using two, three and four laser stripes
with different types of vibrations and when there is a 1% randomly
distributed measurement error. This measurement error is added to

the positions of the transformed points after vibrations. The reconstruction errors increase notably compared with the previous experiments. Also, there is a major difference: the results when using only
two laser stripes are better than when three or four are used. The
reason is that adding noise can provoke spurious estimations of the
vibrations. This problem nally results in outliers in the reconstruction of the shape.
Fig. 8 shows the resulting reconstruction of the object using
two and three laser stripes when vibrations consisting of sinusoidal translations and rotations are added, and with a 1% randomly
distributed measurement error. The added noise provokes errors
in the reconstruction. When using three laser stripes, outliers can
be clearly seen.
An example can be used to understand the problem with three
laser stripes and outliers. Let us suppose the same two points as in
the previous example: P 1 5; 5, P 2 5; 5:1, P 1 4:973; 6:021
and P 2 4:973; 6:121. Vibrations are also ty 1 and 0:251
(around the origin). Assuming 1% error in the repeated measurement, the values of the transformed points would be
P 1 4:973; 6:081 and P 2 4:973; 6:060. The rst point is measured 1% above and the second point is measured 1% below (worst
case scenario). These measurement errors will result in an estimation
of vibrations ty 7.13 and 1:1661, very different from the real
vibration. Let us suppose the third point affected by the same
vibrations is P 3 5; 5:2. Removing the real vibration would provide a height of 4.178, but removing the estimated vibrations would
provide a height of 9.11. Therefore, the result is an outlier.
The estimation of vibrations with noisy data can be improved
by increasing the number of laser stripes. Fig. 9 shows the

0.05
0.04
Error

Error 100

57

0.03
0.02
0.01
0

10

20

30
40
Rotation degree

50

60

Fig. 7. Error when using two laser stripes and vibrations with different degrees of
rotation.

Table 2
Reconstruction error when using multiple stripes and there is measurement
uncertainty.

Table 1
Reconstruction error when using multiple stripes.
Stripes

Rand

Rot

Sin Rot

Stripes

Rand

Rot

Sin Rot

2
3
4

1:9e16
2:1e15
9:5e14

2:7e06
4:8e15
8:0e14

2:7e06
4:8e15
8:0e14

2
3
4

9:7e02
6:6e01
3:6e01

1:1e01
5:1e01
3:3e01

1:1e01
5:4e01
4:2e01

Fig. 6. Error maps with vibrations consisting of sinusoidal translations and rotations. (a) Using two laser stripes. (b) Using three laser stripes.

58

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

resulting error for a different number of stripes. The error

increases sharply from two to three stripes, and it decreases
slowly as the number of stripes is increased. When there are a
large number of stripes the error is low due to the improved
robustness of the estimation of vibrations.
The proposed procedure has been applied to real data. In this
case, steel strips have been used. Strips are generally 2 m wide and
10 km long. 3D reconstruction is required for quality control, such
as atness inspection [25]. The laser source is located at the center
of the roll path making the laser plane perpendicular to the plane
on which the strip lies. The camera is located at 451 with respect to

Fig. 8. Error maps with vibrations consisting in sinusoidal translations and

rotations. (a) Using two laser stripes. (b) Using three laser stripes.

5. Conclusion

0.8

Error

0.6
0.4
0.2
0

the laser plane, also centered over the roll path of the production
line. The camera used is a Basler A501k, which provides images of
1280  1024 pixels using a CMOS sensor at 74 frames per second
with 8 bit depth.
Vibrations in steel strips consist of high frequency vertical
translations. They have a period around 20 cm with a magnitude
of approximately 5 mm. This type of vibrations can be effectively
removed using low-pass lters. Fig. 10(a) and (c) shows two
examples of steel strips reconstructed using a single laser stripe.
As can be appreciated, the shape of the strips is corrupted by
vibrations. Shape quality metrics calculated from this reconstruction would result in large errors. Vibrations can be estimated from
data, as they are the high frequency components of the shape.
Then, the proposed procedure with two laser stripes can be
applied simulating this particular type of vibrations. Fig. 10
(b) and (d) shows the results. The proposed procedure estimates
and removes all vibrations, producing a 3D reconstruction with a
smooth surface. Manual measurements of the shape of the strips
conrm the success of the resulting 3D reconstruction.
The proposed procedure to remove vibrations using multiple
laser stripes is very likely to nd potential applications in a
number of different areas. Vibrations affect the movement of the
objects to a greater or lesser extent in any 3D reconstruction
application based on laser light. Thus, height proles extracted
with a single laser stripe will contain errors, as the reconstructed
shape will be affected by these vibrations. Therefore, the proposed
procedure provides the opportunity to calculate a much more
accurate 3D reconstruction of the object, regardless of the particular application.

8
10
Number of stripes

12

14

Fig. 9. Error when using multiple laser stripes with noisy data.

16

Vibrations are a major issue for laser-based 3D reconstruction

methods. The movement of the object caused by vibrations affects
3D reconstruction and leads to large errors. The proposed procedure in this work is to use multiple laser stripes and estimate and
remove vibrations from 3D reconstruction. First, vibrations are
modeled based on geometrical transformations. In particular,
using translations and rotations, the most common types of
vibrations. Then, a mathematical procedure to estimate vibrations
from data is developed. Using two laser stripes, only translations
can be estimated. Using three laser stripes, both the translations
and the rotations can be estimated. Using more than three laser
stripes produces an overdetermined system that delivers a more

Fig. 10. 3D reconstruction of steel strips using the proposed procedure. (a) First strip with a single laser stripe. (b) First strip with two laser stripes. (c) Second strip with a
single laser stripe. (d) Second strip with two laser stripes.

R. Usamentiaga et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 53 (2014) 5159

robust solution. Multiple tests have been carried out to evaluate

the performance of the proposed procedure with synthetic and
real data.
Experimental results show excellent performance for the proposed procedure. Using three or more laser stripes completely
removes vibrations from the 3D reconstruction. When only two
laser stripes are used, very low error appears in the results,
negligible for most applications. Furthermore, when tests are
carried out using noisy data, a laser-based 3D reconstruction
system with only two stripes clearly outperforms systems with
more stripes, unless many stripes are used. The reason is that
adding noise can provoke an incorrect estimation of vibrations
that can nally result in outliers in the reconstruction of the shape.
A laser projector can signicantly increase the cost of a 3D
reconstruction system. Also, using more than two laser stripes is
only a marginal advantage in some cases. When noise is present in
data, more than two laser stripes is a clear disadvantage, as was
demonstrated in the tests. Therefore, unless there are very specic
requirements, a system with only two stripes is recommended. A
laser-based 3D reconstruction method with two laser stripes
presents a far more cost efcient solution than others with similar
or even better performance.
Final tests on real data with two laser stripes indicate that the
obtained 3D reconstruction after applying the proposed procedure
is comparable to manual measurements, effectively removing the
unwanted effects of vibrations on the estimated shape.
Acknowledgments
This work has been partially funded by the Project TIN200124903 of the Spanish National Plan for Research, Development and
Innovation.
References
[1] Szeliski R. Computer vision: algorithms and applications. Springer; 2010.
[2] Frauel Y, Tajahuerce E, Matoba O, Castro A, Javidi B. Comparison of passive
ranging integral imaging and active imaging digital holography for threedimensional object recognition. Appl Opt 2004;43(2):45262.
[3] Tombari F, Mattoccia S, Di Stefano L, Addimanda E. Classication and evaluation of cost aggregation methods for stereo correspondence. In: IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, 2008. CVPR 2008. IEEE;
2008. p. 18.
[4] Ballan L, Cortelazzo GM. Multimodal 3D shape recovery from texture, silhouette and shadow information. In: Proceedings of the third international
symposium on 3D data processing, visualization, and transmission
(3DPVT'06), 2006. p. 92430.

59

[5] Salvi J, Pags J, Batlle J. Pattern codication strategies in structured light

systems. Pattern Recognition 2004;37(4):82749.
[6] Forest J, Salvi J. A review of laser scanning three-dimensional digitisers. In:
IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and system, vol. 1,
2002.
[7] Hongjian Y, Shiqiang Z. 3d building reconstruction from aerial CCD image and
sparse laser sample data. Opt Lasers Eng 2006;44(6):55566.
[8] Yu S-J, Sukumar SR, Koschan AF, Page DL, Abidi MA. 3d reconstruction of road
surfaces using an integrated multi-sensory approach. Opt Lasers Eng 2007;45
(7):80818.
[9] Molleda J, Usamentiaga R, Garcia DF, Bulnes FG, Ema L. Shape measurement of
steel strips using a laser-based three-dimensional reconstruction technique.
IEEE Trans Ind Appl 2011;47(4):153644.
[10] Liu Z, Sun J, Wang H, Zhang G. Simple and fast rail wear measurement method
based on structured light. Opt Lasers Eng 2011;49(11):134351.
[11] Fernandez A, Garcia R, Alvarez E, Campos AM, Garcia D, Usamentiaga R, et al.
Low cost system for weld tracking based on articial vision. IEEE Trans Ind
Appl 2011;47(3):115967.
[12] Isheil A, Gonnet JP, Joannic D, Fontaine JF. Systematic error correction of a 3d
laser scanning measurement device. Opt Lasers Eng 2011;49(1):1624.
[13] Forest J, Salvi J, Cabruja E, Pous C. Laser stripe peak detector for 3d scanners. a
FIR lter approach. In: Proceedings of the 17th international conference on
pattern recognition. ICPR 2004, vol. 3. IEEE; 2004. p. 6469.
[14] Schnee J, Futterlieb J. Laser line segmentation with dynamic line models. In:
Computer analysis of images and patterns. Springer; 2011. p. 12634.
[15] Usamentiaga R, Molleda J, Garcia DF. Fast and robust laser stripe extraction for
3D reconstruction in industrial environments. Mach Vision Appl 2012;23:
17996.
[16] Molleda J, Usamentiaga R, Garcia D, Bulnes FG, Espina A, Dieye B, et al. An
improved 3D imaging system for dimensional quality inspection of rolled
products in the metal industry. Comput Ind, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.com
pind.2013.05.002, in press.
[17] Pernkopf F. 3d surface acquisition and reconstruction for inspection of raw
steel products. Comput Ind 2005;56(8):87685.
[18] Usamentiaga R, Garcia DF, Molleda J, Bulnes FG, Peregrina S. Vibrations in steel
strips: effects on atness measurement and ltering. In: 43st IAS annual
meeting. Conference record of the 2013 IEEE industry applications conference,
vol. 1. IEEE; 2013. p. 110.
[19] Doignon C, Knittel D. A structured light vision system for out-of-plane
vibration frequencies location of a moving web. Mach Vision Appl 2005;16
(5):28997.
[20] Maurice X, Doignon C, Knittel D. On-line vibrations characterization of a
moving exible web with a fast structured lighting stereovision system. In:
IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings,
2007. IMTC 2007. IEEE; 2007. p. 15.
[21] Bell JR, Rothberg S. Rotational vibration measurements using laser doppler
vibrometry: comprehensive theory and practical application. J Sound Vib
2000;238(4):67390.
[22] Castellini P, Martarelli M, Tomasini E. Laser doppler vibrometry: development
of advanced solutions answering to technology's needs. Mech Syst Signal
Process 2006;20(6):126585.
[23] Bjorck A. Numerical methods for least squares problems. Soc Ind Appl Math
1996;51.
[24] Lawson CL, Hanson RJ. Solving least squares problems, vol. 161. SIAM; 1974.
[25] Molleda J, Usamentiaga R, Garcia D, Bulnes F. Real-time atness inspection of
rolled products based on optical laser triangulation and three-dimensional
surface reconstruction. J Electron Imaging 2010;19:031206.