Patent Application

App. No. 14/198,392

Abstract

Claims (41)

1 . A system for identifying a position and shape of an object in three-dimensional (3D) space, the system comprising:

a housing including a base portion and a body portion, the base portion including electrical contacts for mating with a lighting receptacle;

within the housing,

at least one camera oriented toward a field of view through a port in the housing; and

an image analyzer coupled to the camera for receipt of image data from the camera, the image analyzer configured to capture at least one image of the object and to generate object data indicative of a position and shape of the object in 3D space; and

power conditioning circuitry for converting power supplied to the lighting receptacle to power suitable for operating the at least one camera and the image analyzer.

2 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a transmitter circuit for transmitting the object data to an external computer system for computationally reconstructing the object.

3 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a lighting unit within the housing for providing ambient light to the 3D space.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the lighting unit comprises at least one light-emitting diode and a phosphor.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the image analyzer is further configured to:

slice the object into a plurality of two-dimensional (2D) image slices, each slice corresponding to a cross-section of the object;

identify a shape and position of the object based at least in part on an image captured by the image analyzer and a location of the housing; and

reconstruct the position and shape of the object in 3D space based at least in part on a plurality of the 2D image slices.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the base comprises threads and a contact mateable with an Edison screw socket.

7 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the base comprises prongs mateable with a halogen lamp socket.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the base comprises two opposed bases separated by the body portion and configured to be received within a fluorescent tube receptacle.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one camera comprises a plurality of cameras each having an optical axis extending radially from the housing and displaced from the other optical axes.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein each said camera has a field of view, at least two of the fields of view overlapping one another to create an overlapped region, whereby when the object is within the overlapped region, image data from said cameras creating the overlapped region can be used to generate object data in 3D.

11 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the optical axes are angularly displaced from one another.

12 . A distributed system for identifying a position and shape of an object in three-dimensional (3D) space, the system comprising:

a plurality of sensors each including:

a housing including a base portion and a body portion, the base portion including electrical contacts for mating with a lighting receptacle;

within the housing,

at least one camera oriented toward a field of view through a port in the housing; and

an image analyzer coupled to the camera for receipt of image data from the camera, the image analyzer configured to capture at least one image of the object and to generate object data indicative of a position and shape of the object in 3D space; and

power conditioning circuitry for converting power supplied to the lighting receptacle to power suitable for operating the at least one camera and the image analyzer;

a transmitter for transmitting the object data; and

a computer for receiving the object data from the sensors and computationally constructing therefrom a representation of the object.

13 . The system of claim 12 , further comprising an interface for permitting a user to vary a displayed view of the object through 360°.

14 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the computer is configured to computationally construct a 3-D representation of the object from the image data from the at least one camera.

15 . The system of claim 14 , wherein:

wherein the at least one camera comprises a plurality of cameras each having an optical axis extending from the housing and displaced from the other optical axes;

each said camera has a field of view, at least two of the fields of view overlapping one another to create an overlapped region; and

whereby when at least a portion of the object is within the overlapped region, image data from the plurality of cameras of said portion of the object in the overlapped region can be used to computationally construct a 3-D representation of the portion of the object from the image data from the plurality of cameras.

16 . The system of claim 14 , further comprising a database containing a library of object templates, the computer being configured to match the 3D representation to one of the templates.

17 . An apparatus for capturing information about an object in space, the apparatus comprising:

a base portion including electrical contacts for mating with a receptacle that powers a light source; and

a body portion, the body portion enclosing:

at least one camera oriented toward a field of view through a port in the body portion to capture at least one image of the object;

a transceiver to communicate image data from the at least one camera to an image analyzer configured to generate object data indicative of a position of the object in space from the image data; and

a power conditioning circuit to convert power supplied to the receptacle to power suitable for operating the at least one camera and the transceiver.

Assignments (13)