Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 4;21(7):2528.
doi: 10.3390/s21072528.

High Precision Optical Tracking System Based on near Infrared Trinocular Stereo Vision

Songlin Bi  1 , Yonggang Gu  2 , Jiaqi Zou  1 , Lianpo Wang  1 , Chao Zhai  2 , Ming Gong  2
Affiliations

High Precision Optical Tracking System Based on near Infrared Trinocular Stereo Vision

Songlin Bi et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

A high precision optical tracking system (OTS) based on near infrared (NIR) trinocular stereo vision (TSV) is presented in this paper. Compared with the traditional OTS on the basis of binocular stereo vision (BSV), hardware and software are improved. In the hardware aspect, a NIR TSV platform is built, and a new active tool is designed. Imaging markers of the tool are uniform and complete with large measurement angle (>60°). In the software aspect, the deployment of extra camera brings high computational complexity. To reduce the computational burden, a fast nearest neighbor feature point extraction algorithm (FNNF) is proposed. The proposed method increases the speed of feature points extraction by hundreds of times over the traditional pixel-by-pixel searching method. The modified NIR multi-camera calibration method and 3D reconstruction algorithm further improve the tracking accuracy. Experimental results show that the calibration accuracy of the NIR camera can reach 0.02%, positioning accuracy of markers can reach 0.0240 mm, and dynamic tracking accuracy can reach 0.0938 mm. OTS can be adopted in high-precision dynamic tracking.

Keywords: dynamic tracking; optical tracking system; trinocular stereo vision.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Physical map of trinocular stereo vision (TSV).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Near infrared (NIR) markers imaged from different angles. (a) Traditional marker imaging result from 0°. (b) Traditional marker imaging result from 20°. (c) Traditional marker imaging result from 40°. (d) Traditional marker imaging result from 60°. (e) Designed marker imaging result from 0°. (f) Designed marker imaging result from 20°. (g) Designed marker imaging result from 40°. (h) Designed marker imaging result from 60°.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic diagram of an active tool. (a) Model diagram of light-emitting diodes (LED) sleeve. (b) Active marker schematic. (c) Active tool model.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The flow chart of the software.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Schematic diagram of synchronous acquisition of TSV.
Figure 6
Figure 6
NIR trinocular stereo vision calibration.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The flow diagram of fast nearest neighbor feature point extraction algorithm (FNNF).
Figure 8
Figure 8
System setup.
Figure 9
Figure 9
The calibrate template captured by three cameras. (a) Imaged by the left camera. (b) Imaged by the medium camera. (c) Imaged by the right camera.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Measurement range of the system.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Experimental facilities. (a) Model diagram. (b) A high-precision translation platform fixed with a tool. (c) A high-precision rotary platform fixed with a tool.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Track and deviation charts at different positions and angles. (a) Track of movement along the X axis. (b) Deviation of movement along the X axis. (c) Track of movement deviation along the Z axis. (d) Deviation of movement along the Z axis. (e) Track of rotation along the Y axis. (f) Deviation rotation along the Y axis.
Figure 13
Figure 13
Tracking error under static condition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Van Oosterom M.N., den Houting D.A., van de Velde C.J., van Leeuwen F.W. Navigating surgical fluorescence cameras using near-infrared optical tracking. J. Biomed. Opt. 2018;23:056003. doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.23.5.056003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Manni F., Elmi-Terander A., Burström G., Persson O., Edström E., Holthuizen R., Shan C., Zinger S., Van Der Sommen F. Towards Optical Imaging for Spine Tracking without Markers in Navigated Spine Surgery. Sensors. 2020;20:3641. doi: 10.3390/s20133641. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Burström G., Nachabe R., Homan R., Hoppenbrouwers J., Holthuizen R., Persson O., Edström E., Elmi-Terander A. Frameless Patient Tracking with Adhesive Optical Skin Markers for Augmented Reality Surgical Navigation in Spine Surgery. Spine. 2020;45 doi: 10.1097/BRS.0000000000003628. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Liu Y., Li Y., Zhuang Z., Song T. Improvement of Robot Accuracy with an Optical Tracking System. Sensors. 2020;20:6341. doi: 10.3390/s20216341. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kuo C.-H., Huang F.-C., Yang F.-C. Development of Active IR-Based Surgical Marker Tracking and Positioning Systems; Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics; Waikoloa, HI, USA. 12 October 2005.