High-Precision 6DOF Pose Estimation via Global Phase Retrieval in Fringe Projection Profilometry for 3D Mapping
Authors: Sehoon Tak, Keunhee Cho, Sangpil Kim, Jae-Sang Hyun
Organizations: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, South Korea. · Department of Artificial Intelligence, Korea University, Seoul
Digital fringe projection (DFP) enables micrometer-level 3D reconstruction, yet extending it to large-scale mapping remains challenging because six-degree-of-freedom pose estimation often cannot match the reconstruction's precision. Conventional iterative closest point (ICP) registration becomes inefficient on multi-million-point clouds and typically relies on downsampling or feature-based selection, which can reduce local detail and degrade pose precision. Drift-correction methods improve long-term consistency but do not resolve sampling sensitivity in dense DFP point clouds.We propose a high-precision pose estimation method that augments a moving DFP system with a fixed, intrinsically calibrated global projector. Using the global projector's phase-derived pixel constraints and a PnP-style reprojection objective, the method estimates the DFP system pose in a fixed reference frame without relying on deterministic feature extraction, and we experimentally demonstrate sampling invariance under coordinate-preserving subsampling. Experiments demonstrate sub-millimeter pose accuracy against a reference with quantified uncertainty bounds, high repeatability under aggressive subsampling, robust operation on homogeneous surfaces and low-overlap views, and reduced error accumulation when used to correct ICP-based trajectories. The method extends DFP toward accurate 3D mapping in quasi-static scenarios such as inspection and metrology, with the trade-off of time-multiplexed acquisition for the additional projector measurements.
Figures & tables
Fig. 1 : Illustration of system setup.
Component
Poses
Points/pose
RMSpx
Camera (local)
16
147
0.039 ± 0.007
Projector (local)
16
147
0.043 ± 0.008
Projector (global)
16
147
0.044 ± 0.008
TABLE I : Calibration dataset and residual statistics.
Condition
Plane thickness ( μ m)
# acquisitions
Within-session
7.91 ± 5.72
20
Restart-to-restart
9.88 ± 7.08
20
TABLE II : 3D reconstruction accuracy and repeatability on a planar target. Plane thickness is computed as the RMS distance to a best-fit plane.
Fig. 2 : Pose drift under injected spatially correlated noise. Median (IQR) drift vs perturbation magnitude σ for (a) translation δt (mm) and (b) rotation δR (mrad) over K=20 trials per σ . (Sec. IV-D ).
Metric
dt=∥t−t~∥2 (mm)
dR=∠(R~⊤R) (mrad)
Mean ± SD
0.37 ± 0.19
0.56 ± 0.31
Median (IQR)
0.37 (0.25)
0.55 (0.40)
Worst-case (max)
0.92
1.75
TABLE III : Sampling repeatability over K=400 trials on fixed 3D data. Repeatability is measured relative to the trial-median pose T~ .
Fig. 3 : Sampling repeatability on fixed 3D data over K=400 trials. ECDF of (a) translation repeatability dt (mm) and (b) rotation repeatability dR (mrad), defined relative to the trial-median pose. Dashed and dotted vertical lines indicate the median and IQR. (Sec. IV-E1 ).
Fig. 4 : Minimum-overlap robustness. Median (IQR) repeatability vs overlap ratio r for (a) dt (mm) and (b) dR (mrad), over K=120 trials per r . (Sec. IV-E2 )
Scheme
Points
dt (mm)
dR (mrad)
Random
501350
0.37 (0.26)
0.52 (0.37)
Uniform
501350
0.30 (0.23)
0.49 (0.38)
Voxel
492988
0.39 (0.27)
0.56 (0.41)
TABLE IV : Sampling scheme comparison under matched point counts. Reported as median (IQR) over K=120 trials per scheme.
Setting
Default
Tested range
Batch size B
12
5–400
Points per batch n
120
1–400
Max iters T
2000
20–200000
Adam α0
1e-2
5e-4–1e-1
Adam (β1,β2,ϵ)
(0.9, 0.999, 1e-8)
fixed
Stage-2 weight λ
0.01
0.001–1
TABLE V : Optimization defaults used throughout the paper and tested tolerance ranges.
GT traceability (used for et,eR )
Timing summary
Plane registration: GT pose source = Derived from calibrated global-projector frame {Pg} using projector residual statistics (Sec. IV-B ), Expanded uncertainty (95%): σtGT = 0.01 mm, σRGT=0.0833 mrad ICP correction: GT trajectory source = Discrete pose locations established by physical markers; marker centers estimated in the calibrated global projector frame {Pg} ; pose evaluated at marked placements, alignment provided using calipers and visual edge. Translation uncertainty dominated by caliper resolution (0.05 mm) and alignment repeatability.
Acquisition schedule (per pose/frame): local = 18-step + Graycode (5 images), global = 6-step per direction + Graycode (5 images) Achieved acquisition rate: 2.5–3 recon/s (limited by camera and sequence) Reconstruction+preprocess throughput (offline): ∼ 60 recon/s Estimator-only throughput: median ∼ 62 Hz, p95 ∼ 21 Hz across 400 samples Success rate under stopping criteria: 83% (individual pose), 97% (result)
TABLE VI : Ground truth (GT) traceability and timing summary for Sec. V-A . Estimator-only timing excludes acquisition and reconstruction. Success rate is defined as batch hypotheses convergence rate (individual pose) and frame success rate (result).
Metric
Unit
n
Median Δ
95% CI
p
ET
mm
20
9.22
7.27, 15.80
4.8×10−5
ER
mrad
20
29.28
20.95, 42.36
4.8×10−5
σT
mm
7
6.94
0.80, 33.52
0.156
σR
mrad
7
9.40
1.25, 29.97
0.156
TABLE VII : Paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for ICP vs ICP+Model. Δ denotes paired improvement (ICP − ICP+Model); positive values favor ICP+Model. 95% CIs are bootstrap percentile over paired units.
Fig. 5 : Featureless plane registration. (a) Estimated trajectory vs GT in the global reference frame. (b) Per-pose pose error relative to GT: translation et (mm, left axis) and rotation eR (mrad, right axis). (Sec. V-B )
Fig. 6 : Error accumulation reduction under downsampling. Median trajectories for ICP and ICP+Model. GT markers are shown for reference. ICP+Model closely overlaps GT; separation is quantified in the right panel. (b) Per-pose translation error et (mm) relative to GT (median with IQR over voxel sizes). (c) Per-pose rotation error eR (mrad) relative to GT (median with IQR over voxel sizes). The y-axis is logarithmic to accommodate the large dynamic range between ICP and ICP+Model. (Sec. V-C ).