Measuring three-dimensional surfaces with a two-dimensional data tablet

This paper describes a method for measuring the three-dimensional position of points on a surface using only a two-dimensional tablet or digitizer, standard photographic techniques and some computing power. The tablet is used to extract two-dimensional information from photographs of the surface. Data from multiple views of the surface is processed to give the three-dimensional position of points on the surface. This method has been successfully used to obtain point position data for the polygonal representation of several human faces and a human body.