Three-dimensional shape measurement using two snapshots from a moving digital camera

A method is presented for measuring accurate and dense 3D shapes of an object from two views capturedwith a moving consumer digital camera. Since existing 3D measurement systems require special and expensive measurement equipment such as laser scanners or technical knowledge such as camera calibration, it is difficult for ordinary consumers to use existing systems practically in their daily life. An easy-to-use 3D measurement system was achieved by using a Structure from Motion algorithm based on feature matching to estimate camera parameters and area-based matching to determine anaccurate and dense correspondence. Experiments demonstrated that the proposed method makes it possible to measure a 3Dshape with accuracy comparable to that of a laser scanner.