Arrangement for sensing the geometric characteristics of an object

An arrangement for sensing and locating points on a surface comprising:

• means for generating a projection field directed onto a surface;
• means for subdividing said projection field into a number of sections;
• means for irradiating said surface with different variations of said subdivided projection field so that each section is illuminated at least once;
• means for recording within a field of view images of said surface as irradiated by the subdivided projection field;
• means for recording a calibrated reference surface and reading said recorded images in relation to said reference surface to define the location of a predetermined point on said first-mentioned surface and appearing within said field of view;
• means for projecting in sequence by said projection field preselected patterns onto the surface for subdividing the projection field into predetermined sections, said projected patterns on said surface having irradiated sections and non-irradiated sections, each pattern of irradiated sections and non-irradiated sections corresponding to an assigned code, said reading of said recorded images comprising further reading each projected pattern of irradiated and non-irradiated sections and reading the sections in which a preselected point appears, said patterns being combined for obtaining a predetermined total number of sections, said projection field being subdivided into said total number of sections, the number of said patterns and the total number of sections being related by said assigned code;
• the patterns and sections in which the point appears being related to identify the position in three-dimensional space of the point on said surface.