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Object surface recovery using a multi-light photometric stereo technique for non-Lambertian surfaces subject to shadows and specularities

Sun, Jiuai; Smith, Melvyn; Smith, Lyndon; Midha, Sagar; Bamber, Jeff

Authors

Jiuai Sun

Profile Image

Melvyn Smith Melvyn.Smith@uwe.ac.uk
Research Centre Director Vision Lab/Prof

Lyndon Smith Lyndon.Smith@uwe.ac.uk
Professor in Computer Simulation and Machine

Sagar Midha

Jeff Bamber



Abstract

This paper presents a new multi-light source photometric stereo system for reconstructing images of various characteristics of non-Lambertian rough surfaces with widely varying texture and specularity. Compared to the traditional three-light photometric stereo method, extra lights are employed using a hierarchical selection strategy to eliminate the effects of shadows and specularities, and to make the system more robust. We also show that six lights is the minimum needed in order to apply photometric stereo to the entire visible surface of any convex object. Experiments on synthetic and real scenes demonstrate that the proposed method can extract surface reflectance and orientation effectively, even in the presence of strong shadows and highlights. Hence, the method offers advantages in the recovery of dichromatic surfaces possessing rough texture or deeply relieved topographic features, with applications in reverse engineering and industrial surface inspection. Experimental results are presented in the paper.

Citation

Sun, J., Smith, M., Smith, L., Midha, S., & Bamber, J. (2007). Object surface recovery using a multi-light photometric stereo technique for non-Lambertian surfaces subject to shadows and specularities. Image and Vision Computing, 25(7), 1050-1057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imavis.2006.04.025

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jul 1, 2007
Journal Image and Vision Computing
Print ISSN 0262-8856
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 25
Issue 7
Pages 1050-1057
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imavis.2006.04.025
Keywords photometric stereo, specular reflection, shadows, surface reflectance, surface orientation, height map, linear least-squares solution
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1027060
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.imavis.2006.04.025