US Patent 9137511 3D modeling with depth camera and surface normals

Devices and techniques are described for generating three-dimensional (3D) models of objects. Depth data acquired from a depth camera system is used with data about surface normals to generate a 3D model of the object. The depth camera system may use cameras or projectors with different baseline distances to generate depth data. The use of different baseline distances may improve accuracy of the depth data. The data about surface normals may be calculated from images acquired when the object is illuminated from different angles. By using the depth data and relative depth changes from the surface normal data, high resolution spatial data may be generated at high frame rates. Data from multiple baseline distances may also be combined to improve performance.