Guide to quickly build high-quality three-dimensional models with a structured light range scanner.

In literature, there are many reports about how to build high-precision, high-speed, and/or flexibly structured light range scanners. Whereas, there are few papers reported about how to implement the scanning to reach the full potential of the scanners when digitizing various objects. In this paper, some scanning strategies adopted by the structured light range scanner XJTUOM are introduced. In order to build high-quality three-dimensional (3D) models for various applications, such as 3D inspection, if necessary, the object surface is prepared in advance by an application of coating spray. Then, a precise 3D coordinate control network (CNN) is established to control the overall measurement accuracy. When the sensor is adjusted to face the object, a visual measuring volume, which can guide the scanning, is automatically aligned to the established CNN. Meanwhile, to maintain the local region scanning accuracy, simple rules are developed to check the low-quality regions in each scanning. Finally, the advantages and limitations of these scanning strategies are discussed in detail. We hope our work will be helpful in order for others to make their own scanning plans with similar optical devices at hand.