This paper describes the configuration and evaluation of a CCD-based biostereometric system at the Department of Orthodontics, Kings College Dental Hospital, London. The system has been designed to allow rapid and accurate measurement of facial soft-tissue shape with a minimum of traditional photogrammetric training. This has been achieved by automatic camera calibration and stereo matching, performed on a Sun Microsystem 3/160 workstation. In summary, the characteristics of the system are: (a) non-contract three-dimensional (3D) measurement of soft-tissue; (b) de-skilled, requiring little or no photogrammetric training; (c) rapid data acquisition, combined with slower off-line processing; (d) processing of resulting 3D surface information to yield cross-sections; (e) surface measurement accurate to within 0.5 mm. Accuracy assessment was performed using a manual electromechanical non-contact measurement device with precision exceeding the requirement of the biostereometric system.

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In a continuing drive to reduce the radiation exposure of nuclear workers, many routine aspects of nuclear plant maintenance and refurbishment are increasingly undertaken by robotic or remote handling tools. Accurate “as built” documentation of plant records is vital to the successful planning and execution of such operations since an unexpected obstruction or undocumented site modification may result in a costly disruption or even failure of the intervention. In recognition of the importance of such documentation, a recent European Community† sponsored project has been directed towards the development of techniques for cost effective survey and modelling of such plant. This paper will detail the rationale behind the design of such a system and will describe typical results from a number of pilot projects.

This paper describes the design of a panoramic digital photogrammetric system dedicated to the production of As-Built documentation for large industrial facilities. Such activities necessitate the acquisition, management and exploitation of very large image archives that attempt to document all the significant features of an industrial structure with sufficient coverage that ad-hoc photogrammetric measurement can be undertaken. In order to maximise the value of such archives mechanisms have been developed to enable their integration with Facility Management (FM) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems and to enable their integration within a corporate client-server architecture.

A number of recent projects have demonstrated the utility of Internet-enabled image databases for the documentation of complex, inaccessible and potentially hazardous environments typically encountered in the petrochemical and nuclear industries. Unfortunately machine vision and image processing techniques have not, to date, enabled the automatic extraction geometrical data from such images and thus 3D CAD modelling remains an expensive and laborious manual activity.Recent developments in panoramic image capture and presentation offer an alternative intermediate deliverable which, in turn, offers some of the benefits of a 3D model at a faction of the cost. Panoramic image display tools such as Apple's QuickTime VR (QTVR) and Live Spaces Rea1VR provide compelling and accessible digital representations of the real world and justifiably claim to 'put the reality in Virtual Reality'. This paper will demonstrate how such technologies can be customised, extended and linked to facility management systems delivered over a corporate intra-net to enable end users to become familiar with remote sites and extract simple dimensional data. In addition strategies for the integration of such images with documents gathered from 2D or 3D CAD and Process and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) will be described as will techniques for precise 'As-Built' modelling using the calibrated images from which panoramas have been derived and the use of textures from these images to increase the realism of rendered scenes.A number of case studies relating to both nuclear and process engineering will demonstrate the extent to which such solution are scaleable in order to deal with the very large volumes of image data required to fully document the large, complex facilities typical of these industry sectors.