Summary of NIST's Efforts to Develop Protocols for the Performance Evaluation of 3D Imaging Systems

This paper presents a synopsis of the effort at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop standard protocols for the performance evaluation of 3D Imaging Systems. A 3D imaging system is an instrument used to measure rapidly the 3D coordinates of points on an object or within a scene. The effort toward developing standard protocols for performance evaluation began with a workshop at NIST in 2003. Since the 2003 workshop, three other workshops have been held at NIST with the latest one on March 2-3, 2006. The objectives of the NIST workshops were to provide a forum for sharing and discussing efforts in the evaluation of 3D imaging systems and to determine the needs of the 3D imaging community. One outcome of the 2006 workshop was the selection of a standards development organization (SDO) to host the standard protocols for 3D imaging systems.