Kinect 3D Mapping

Abstract: This is a master thesis of the Master of Science degree program in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at Linköping University. The goal of this thesis is to find out how the Microsoft Kinect can be used as a part of a camera rig to create accurate 3D-models of an indoor environment. The Microsoft Kinect is marketed as a touch free game controller for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console. The Kinect contains a color and a depth camera. The depth camera works by constantly projecting a near infrared dot pattern that is observed with a near infrared camera. In this thesis it is described how to model the near infrared projector pattern to enable external near infrared cameras to be used to improve the measurement precision. The depth data that the Kinect output have been studied to determine what types of errors it contains. The finding was that the Kinect uses an online calibration algorithm that changes the depth data.