TOF - Time-of-Flight

Principles

• Measure the time of emitted light and reflected response.
• Time delay (pulse) and phase based.

Key considerations

• Utilize time as «baseline».
• Potentially compact with no occlusion.
• Large measurement range (several hundred meters).
• Very fast (real-time video rates).
• Sensitive to reflections.
• Limited absolute accuracy.
• Complex manufacturing.
• Typically sub-HD resolutions.

Keep learning!

Read the whole article about active and passive 3D vision principles here, including stereo, active stereo, laser, ToF, and structured light machine vision.