Fraunhofer IOF’s MWIR 3D Sensor can be used to scan objects in 3D, regardless of whether they are made of transparent plastic or glass. The heart of the system is a CO2 laser with which the object to be measured is irradiated. Special lenses are used to extend the laser beam to a line that illuminates the entire object vertically. For a high-resolution measurement result, this line is moved over the object in a specially coordinated sequence. The energy of the laser light is absorbed by the measured object and partially re-emitted. Two thermal imaging cameras analyze this thermal signature from two different perspectives. A software then calculates spatial pixels and merges them into the exact dimensions of the measured object. The system achieves an accuracy of less than 10µm for the 3D coordinates with an image field width of 160mm.
