Epipolar Time-of-Flight Imaging

Abstract

Consumer time-of-flight depth cameras like Kinect and PMD are cheap, compact and produce video-rate depth maps in short-range applications. In this paper we apply energy-efficient epipolar imaging to the ToF domain to significantly expand the versatility of these sensors: we demonstrate live 3D imaging at over 15 m range outdoors in bright sunlight; robustness to global transport effects such as specular and diffuse inter-reflections---the first live demonstration for this ToF technology; interference-free 3D imaging in the presence of many ToF sensors, even when they are all operating at the same optical wavelength and modulation frequency; and blur-free, distortion-free 3D video in the presence of severe camera shake. We believe these achievements can make such cheap ToF devices broadly applicable in consumer and robotics domains.