3-D intraoral measurements using optical multiline method

1. A method for mapping a sensor pixel array to an illumination pixel array according to a surface, the method executed at least in part on a computer and comprising:

forming a group mapping by assigning each pixel in a plurality of pixels on the sensor array to a corresponding group of an ordered set of groups on the illumination pixel array, wherein each group has a group width defined by a set of p adjacent pixels on the illumination pixel array and the ordered set has k groups by:

projecting onto the surface and recording a first multiple group index image with a first pattern of lines and a second multiple group index image with a second pattern of lines, wherein lines that appear at identical positions in both the first pattern of lines and the second pattern of lines are evenly spaced from each other by a first distance that is a first multiple of group width p, wherein the first multiple is an integer greater than 1, and lines that appear only in either the first pattern of lines or the second pattern of lines are evenly spaced from each other by a second distance that is a second multiple of group size and that exceeds the first distance;

projecting onto the surface and recording a subset of a set of p multiline images, wherein each multiline image projects a line within each group and wherein the projected lines in each of the subset of p multiline images are evenly spaced apart by a group width of p pixels; and

correlating lines in one of the recorded multiline images with lines from the first and second multiple group index images to generate the group mapping for all k groups and storing the correlation in a computer-accessible memory.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein correlating lines comprises:

correlating lines in the first multiple group index image with lines in the second multiple group index image to generate a first set of mapped groups; and

correlating lines of the first set of mapped groups with lines in at least one member of the subset of recorded multiline images.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising checking for the presence of lines at predetermined positions in one or more of the recorded multiline images and the absence of lines at other positions in the first set of mapped groups.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying one or more of the first multiple group index image, the second multiple group index image or the recorded multiline images.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the second distance is twice the first distance.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the illumination pixel array is a liquid crystal device or a digital micromirror array device.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein forming the group map further comprises projecting and recording at least one dark field image and at least one flat field image.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising computing and displaying surface contour data according to the recorded multiline images and the group mapping for all k groups.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the subset of the set of p multiline images consists of a single multiline image.

10. A method for providing a surface contour image, the method executed at least in part by a computer and comprising:

forming a group mapping by assigning each pixel in a plurality of pixels on the sensor array to a corresponding group of an ordered set of groups on the illumination pixel array, wherein each group has a group width defined by a set of p adjacent pixels on the illumination pixel array and the ordered set has k groups by:

projecting and recording a first multiple group index image with a first pattern of lines and a second multiple group index image with a second pattern of lines, wherein there are lines that appear at identical positions in both the first and second pattern, and wherein lines that appear in both first and second patterns are evenly spaced from each other by a first distance that is a first multiple of group width p wherein the first multiple is an integer greater than 1, and lines that appear only in either the first or the second pattern are evenly spaced from each other by a second distance that is a second multiple of group size and that exceeds the first distance;

projecting and recording a subset of a set of p multiline images, wherein each multiline image projects a line within each group and wherein the projected lines in each of the subset of p multiline images in the set are evenly spaced apart by a width of p pixels;

correlating lines in one of the multiline images with lines from the first and second multiple group index images to generate the group mapping for all k groups and storing the correlation in a computer-accessible memory;

detecting peak locations from the projected subset of p multiline images and forming the surface contour image according to the peak locations and group mapping; and

displaying the surface contour image.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein correlating lines comprises

correlating lines in the first multiple group index image with lines in the second multiple group index images to generate a first set of mapped groups; and

correlating lines of the first set of mapped groups with lines in the one of the recorded multiline images.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising checking for the presence of lines on the one of the recorded multiline images and the absence of lines in the first set of mapped groups.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the illumination pixel array is a liquid crystal device or is a digital micromirror array device.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein forming the group map further comprises obtaining and recording at least one dark field image and at least one flat field image.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the subset of the set of p multiline images consists of a single multiline image.