A new focus measure operator for enhancing image focus in 3D shape recovery.

Measuring the image focus is an important issue in Shape from Focus methods. Conventionally, the Sum of Modified Laplacian, Gray Level Variance (GLV), and Tenengrad techniques have been used frequently among various focus measure operators for estimating the focus levels in a sequence of images. However, they have various issues such as fixed window size and suboptimal focus quality. To solve these problems, a new focus measure operator based on the adaptive sum of weighted modified Laplacian is proposed. First, the adaptive window size selection algorithm based on the GLV is applied. Next, appropriate weights are assigned to the Modified Laplacian values in the image window based on the distance between the center pixel and neighboring pixels. Finally, the Weighted Modified Laplacian values in the image window are summed. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Jitter Elimination in Shape Recovery by using Adaptive Neural Network Filter.

Three-dimensional (3D) cameras are expensive because they employ additional charged coupled device sensors and optical elements, e.g., lasers or complicated scanning mirror systems. One passive optical method, shape from focus (SFF), provides an efficient low cost solution for 3D cameras. However, mechanical vibration of the SFF imaging system causes jitter noise along the optical axis, which makes it difficult to obtain accurate shape information of objects. In traditional methods, this error cannot be removed and increases as the estimation of the shape recovery progresses. Therefore, the final 3D shape may be inaccurate. We introduce an accurate depth estimation method using an adaptive neural network (ANN) filter to remove the jitter noise effects. Jitter noise is modeled by both Gaussian distribution and non-Gaussian distribution. Then, focus curves are modeled by quadratic functions. The ANN filter is designed as an optimal estimator restoring the original position of each frame of the input image sequence in the modeled jitter noise, as a pre-processing step before the initial depth map is obtained. The proposed method was evaluated using image sequences of both synthetic and real objects. Experimental results demonstrate that it is reasonably efficient and that its accuracy is comparable with that of existing systems.

Optimal depth estimation using modified Kalman filter in the presence of non-Gaussian jitter noise.

The consideration of the noise that affects 3D shape recovery is becoming very important for accurate shape reconstruction. In Shape from Focus, when 2D image sequences are obtained, mechanical vibrations, referred as jitter noise, occur randomly along the z-axis, in each step. To model the noise for real world scenarios, this article uses Lévy distribution for noise profile modeling. Next, focus curves acquired by one of focus measure operators are modeled as Gaussian function to consider the effects of the jitter noise. Finally, since conventional Kalman filter provides good output under Gaussian noise only, a modified Kalman filter, as proposed method, is used to remove the jitter noise. Experiments are carried out using synthetic and real objects to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Removal of jitter noise in 3D shape recovery from image focus by using Kalman filter.

In regard to Shape from Focus, one critical factor impacting system application is mechanical vibration of the translational stage causing jitter noise along the optical axis. This noise is not detectable by simply observing the image. However, when focus measures are applied, inaccuracies in the depth occur. In this article, jitter noise and focus curves are modeled by Gaussian distribution and quadratic function, respectively. Then Kalman filter is designed and applied to eliminate this noise in the focus curves, as a post-processing step after the focus measure application. Experiments are implemented with simulated objects and real objects to show usefulness of proposed algorithm.