The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 13, 1995
Filed:
Dec. 28, 1992
Eric Cosnard, La Peyrouse-Fossat, FR;
Jan Steuperaert, Le Faget, FR;
Kreon Industrie, , FR;
Abstract
An optical sensor for three dimensional shapes includes a laser that produces a lamellar plane beam which illuminates the surface of an object. The lamellar plane beam produces a curvilinear luminous trace that is scanned by at least one video camera, to produce information that is then converted into digital data representing pixel coordinates. The sensor includes a lightbox having a common housing that is positioned a short distance above the object to be scanned. The lightbox housing also includes a laser source that produces a collimated rectilinear beam and an optical device for converting the rectilinear beam into the lamellar plane beam. The lightbox housing also includes a device for lengthening the optical path of the lamellar plane beam, comprising two fixed plane mirrors in face to face relationship to produce a plurality of reflections between a beam entry point and a beam exit point of the lightbox. The small physical distance between the housing and the object is compensated by a virtual optical distance so that there is a correlative increase in the depth of field of the usable region of the lamellar plane beam at the beam exit point from the housing.