Design of High-Resolution Optical Systems for Fast and Accurate Surface Reconstruction

In the last few decades, virtual reconstruction of objects has grown interest in the field of quality control. As known, smart manufactures need automatic systems for the real-time investigation of production yields, i.e. techniques, methods and technologies devoted to the analysis of quality. In particular, high-resolution systems are required for the measurement of surface profiles aimed to the detection and characterization of small defects, with sizes reaching the limit of few microns. This book Chapter describes the procedure for the design of high-resolution and high-accuracy laser scanning probes based on triangulation techniques for the exhaustive reconstruction of objects. Drawbacks and limitations will be discussed, with particular focus on occlusion problems due to possible undercut surfaces within the testing objects. A complete description of novel techniques will be thus provided together with a demonstration of a resulting optical probe. Challenging metal objects, namely drilling tools, will be then investigated, proving measurement resolutions close to the physical diffraction limit.