Optimized scattering compensation for time-of-flight camera

Recent time-of-flight (TOF) cameras allow for real-time acquisition of range maps with good performance. However, the accuracy of the measured range map may be limited by secondary light reflections. Specifically, the range measurement is affected by scattering, which consists in parasitic signals caused by multiple reflections inside the camera device. Scattering, which is particularly strong in scenes with large aspect ratios, must be detected and the errors compensated. This paper considers reducing scattering errors by means of image processing methods applied to the output image from the time-of-flight camera. It shows that scattering reduction can be expressed as a deconvolution problem on a complex, two-dimensional signal. The paper investigated several solutions. First, a comparison of image domain and Fourier domain processing for scattering compensation is provided. One key element in the comparison is the computation load and the requirement to perform scattering compensation in real-time. Then, the paper discusses strategies for improved scattering reduction. More specifically, it treats the problem of optimizing the description of the inverse filter for best scattering compensation results. Finally, the validity of the proposed scattering reduction method is verified on various examples of indoor scenes.