Structured-Light Projection
Definition
A 3D imaging method in which a known grid pattern of light is projected onto a surface; the distortion of the pattern as imaged by a camera reveals the 3D surface geometry. Used in the Thales TBS 3D Enroll terminal for border-crossing fingerprint capture.
- Method
- Projects known light pattern onto surface
- Measures
- 3D geometry from pattern distortion
- Applied device
- TBS 3D Enroll terminal
- Application
- Contactless fingerprint capture
Common questions
Why use structured-light capture instead of a traditional ink or contact scanner?+
It captures the full 3D ridge topography without pressing the finger onto a surface, avoiding the distortion that skin flattening under contact pressure introduces, and works even when hygiene concerns make contact scanning undesirable, as at a border crossing.
How does the terminal convert the captured 3D shape into a usable fingerprint?+
Software unrolls the 3D ridge surface into a flat, standard fingerprint image format so the result stays compatible with existing databases and matching algorithms built for conventional two-dimensional prints.
Related terms
- 3D Fingerprint Capture
- Technology that creates a three-dimensional surface map of fingerprint ridge detail, typically using structured-light projection or photogrammetry, rather than a flat 2D...
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- MALDI-MSI
- Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation mass spectrometry imaging; a technique that maps the spatial distribution of chemical compounds across a fingerprint surface without...
- Micro-Computed Tomography (Micro-CT)
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- NIST Latent Quality Metric
- A convolutional neural network-based quality scoring tool developed by NIST that assigns a quality score to latent fingerprint images in ANSI/NIST ITL...
- Squalene
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- ULTR (Uniform Language for Testimony and Reports)
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