Three-dimensional scanning of specular and diffuse metallic surfaces using an infrared technique

For the past two decades, the need for three-dimensional (3-D) scanning of industrial objects has increased significantly and many experimental techniques and commercial solutions have been proposed. However, difficulties remain for the acquisition of optically non-cooperative surfaces, such as transparent or specular surfaces. To address highly reflective metallic surfaces, we propose the extension of a technique that was originally dedicated to glass objects. In contrast to conventional active triangulation techniques that measure the reflection of visible radiation, we measure the thermal emission of a surface, which is locally heated by a laser source. Considering the thermophysical properties of metals, we present a simulation model of heat exchanges that are induced by the process, helping to demonstrate its feasibility on specular metallic surfaces and predicting the settings of the system. With our experimental device, we have validated the theoretical modeling and computed some 3-D point clouds from specular surfaces of various geometries. Furthermore, a comparison of our results with those of a conventional system on specular and diffuse parts will highlight that the accuracy of the measurement no longer depends on the roughness of the surface

A 3D scanner for transparent glass

Many practical tasks in industry, such as automatic inspection or robot vision, often require the scanning of three-dimensional shapes by use of non-contact techniques. However, few methods have been proposed to measure three-dimensional shapes of transparent objects because of the difficulty of dealing with transparency and specularity of the surface. This paper presents a 3D scanner for transparent glass objects based on Scanning From Heating (SFH), a new method that makes use of local surface heating and thermal imaging

Scanning from heating: 3D shape estimation of transparent objects from local surface heating

Today, with quality becoming increasingly important, each product requires three-dimensional in-line quality control. On the other hand, the 3D reconstruction of transparent objects is a very difficult problem in computer vision due to transparency and specularity of the surface. This paper proposes a new method, called Scanning From Heating (SFH), to determine the surface shape of transparent objects using laser surface heating and thermal imaging. Furthermore, the application to transparent glass is discussed and results on different surface shapes are presented

TGFβ promotes low IL10-producing ILC2 with profibrotic ability involved in skin fibrosis in systemic sclerosis

Objective : Innate lymphoid cells-2 (ILC2) were shown to be involved in the development of lung or hepatic fibrosis. We sought to explore the functional and phenotypic heterogeneity of ILC2 in skin fibrosis within systemic sclerosis (SSc). Methods : Blood samples and skin biopsies from healthy donor or patients with SSc were analysed by immunostaining techniques. The fibrotic role of sorted ILC2 was studied in vitro on dermal fibroblast and further explored by transcriptomic approach. Finally, the efficacy of a new treatment against fibrosis was assessed with a mouse model of SSc. Results : We found that ILC2 numbers were increased in the skin of patients with SSc and correlated with the extent of skin fibrosis. In SSc skin, KLRG1− ILC2 (natural ILC2) were dominating over KLRG1+ ILC2 (inflammatory ILC2). The cytokine transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ), whose activity is increased in SSc, favoured the expansion of KLRG1- ILC2 simultaneously decreasing their production of interleukin 10 (IL10), which regulates negatively collagen production by dermal fibroblasts. TGFβ-stimulated ILC2 also increased myofibroblast differentiation. Thus, human KLRG1- ILC2 had an enhanced profibrotic activity. In a mouse model of SSc, therapeutic intervention-combining pirfenidone with the administration of IL10 was required to reduce the numbers of skin infiltrating ILC2, enhancing their expression of KLRG1 and strongly alleviating skin fibrosis. Conclusion : Our results demonstrate a novel role for natural ILC2 and highlight their inter-relationships with TGFβ and IL10 in the development of skin fibrosis, thereby opening up new therapeutic approaches in SSc

Translucent medium

8 pagesarticle in McGraw-Hill Science & Technology EncyclopediaInternational audienceA medium allowing light to pass through partially or diffusely. An object cannot be seen clearly through translucent matter. In the most accepted meaning, translucency is used to describe a medium transmitting most of the light but scattering it more or less so that objects seen through it are blurry with soft contours and without details. The closer the object is to the medium the sharper its image through it. There are many examples of such media among natural or manufactured artifacts, including wax paper, milky water, colloidal and hydrogel materials, aerogels, smoke, fog, clouds, optical ceramics, frosted glass, semitransparent glass, ground glass, milk or opal glass, glassine paper, and tracing paper

A nonlinear derivative scheme applied to edge detection

International audienceThis paper presents a nonlinear derivative approach to addressing the problem of discrete edge detection. This edge detection scheme is based on the nonlinear combination of two polarized derivatives. Its main property is a favorable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at a very low computation cost and without any regularization. A 2D extension of the method is presented and the benefits of the 2D localization are discussed. The performance of the localization and SNR are compared to that obtained using classical edge detection schemes. Tests of the regularized versions and a theoretical estimation of the SNR improvement complete this work

Optical tomography from focus

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Regularization preserving localization of close edges

International audienceIn this letter, we address the problem of the influence of neighbor edges and their effect on the edge delocalization while extracting a neighbor contour by a derivative approach. The properties to be fulfilled by the regularization operators to minimize or suppress this side effect are deduced, and the best detectors are pointed out. The study is carried out in 1-D for discrete signal. We show that among the derivative filters, one of them can correctly detect our model edges without being influenced by a neighboring transition, whatever their separation distance is and their respective amplitude is. A model of contour and close transitions is presented and used throughout this letter. The noise effect on the edge delocalization is recalled through one of the Canny criteria. Different derivative filters are applied onto synthetic images, and their performances are compared

Generic Attribute Deviation Metric for Assessing Mesh Simplification Algorithm Quality

International audienceThis paper describes an efficient method to compare two triangular meshes. Meshes considered here contain geometric features as well as other surface attributes such as material colors, texture, temperature, radiation, etc. Two deviation measurements are presented to assess the differences between two meshes. The first measurement, called geometric deviation, returns geometric differences. The second measurement , called attribute deviation, returns attribute differences regardless of the attribute type. In this paper we present an application of this method to the Mesh Simplification Algorithm (MSA) quality assessment according to the appearance attributes. This assessment allows the appreciation of local quality and the computation of global quality statistics of a simplified mesh

Noise estimation from digital step-model signal

International audienceThis paper addresses the noise estimation in the digital domain and proposes a noise estimator based on the step signal model. It is efficient for any distribution of noise because it does not rely only on the smallest amplitudes in the signal or image. The proposed approach uses polarized/directional derivatives and a nonlinear combination of these derivatives to estimate the noise distribution (e.g., Gaussian, Poisson, speckle, etc.). The moments of this measured distribution can be computed and are also calculated theoretically on the basis of noise distribution models. The 1D performances are detailed, and as our work is mostly dedicated to image processing, a 2D extension is proposed. The 2D performances for several noise distributions and noise models are presented and are compared to selected other methods