Acquiring a complete 3D model from specular motion under the illumination of circular-shaped light sources

We recover 3D models of objects with specular surfaces. An object is rotated and its continuous images are taken. Circular-shaped light sources that generate conic rays are used to illuminate the rotating object in such a way that highlighted stripes can be observed on most of the specular surfaces. Surface shapes can be computed from the motions of highlights in the continuous images; either specular motion stereo or single specular trace mode can be used. When the lights are properly set, each point on the object can be highlighted during the rotation. The shape for each rotation plane is measured independently using its corresponding epipolar plane image. A 3D shape model is subsequently reconstructed by combining shapes at different rotation planes. Computing a shape is simple and requires only the motion of highlight on each rotation plane. The novelty of this paper is the complete modeling of a general type of specular objects that has not been accomplished before