Hierarchical binary structured light patterns

A structured light imaging device comprising:

• a projector component configured to project a hierarchical binary pattern, wherein the hierarchical binary pattern was formed by scaling a lower resolution binary pattern at a first resolution to a higher resolution binary pattern at a second resolution, wherein the scaling replaces a binary number in the lower resolution binary pattern with a two-dimensional binary pattern;
• an imaging sensor component configured to capture images of the scene, wherein the captured images comprise the hierarchical pattern;
• means for rectifying a captured image to generate a rectified captured image;
• means for extracting a binary image from the rectified captured image at the first resolution and at the second resolution;
• and
• means for using the binary image at the first resolution and the second resolution to generate a depth map of the captured image.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause a method of image processing to be performed, the method comprising:

• projecting a hierarchical binary pattern, wherein the hierarchical binary pattern is formed by scaling a lower resolution binary pattern at a first resolution to a higher resolution binary pattern at a second resolution, wherein the scaling replaces a binary number in the lower resolution binary system with a two-dimensional binary pattern;
• receiving a captured image of a scene, wherein the captured image is captured by a camera of a projector-camera pair, the captured image comprises the hierarchical binary pattern;
• rectifying the captured image to generated a rectified captured image;
• extracting a binary image from the rectified captured image at the first resolution and the second resolution;
• and
• using the binary image at the first resolution and the binary image at the second resolution to generate a depth map of the captured image.