Technology

Accordion Fringe Interferometry (AFI) is a truly revolutionary technology that extends traditional linear laser interferometry to three dimensions. It is destined to make 3D "photography" as ubiquitous and easy-to-use as traditional consumer (2D) photography. The original work on AFI was done at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory outside of Boston, Massachusetts.  MIT Lincoln Laboratory is the Federally Funded Research and Development Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All of the MIT-developed AFI patents are exclusively licensed by MIT to DPI for all fields-of-use worldwide. A broad range of "industrial applications" of the technology has been sub-licensed to FARO Technologies, Inc.

AFI employs light from two point sources to illuminate an object with an interference fringe pattern. A high precision digital camera is used to record the curvature of the fringes from a viewpoint offset from the projector. The degree of apparent fringe curvature coupled with the known geometry between the camera and laser source enable the AFI algorithms to digitize the surface of the object being scanned.  The photo above shows the interference pattern created by the proprietary AFI technology.

AFI offers many advantages over older "white light" scanners, which are likely to establish AFI as the dominant area scanning technology for multiple applications around the world. These advantages include, but are not limited to: lower sensitivity to ambient light variations and noise, very high accuracy, large projector depth of field, enhanced ability to scan shiny and translucent surfaces and the ability to scanwithout targets and photogrammetry systems.

AFI is highly scalable across the parameters of field-of-view, speed and accuracy. DPI has or are in the process of developing 3D scanners with up to 2 meters of scanning area and real-time scanning with accuracies down to sub-micron levels (nano scale).   

For other applications, such as intra-oral scanning, DPI's new DPI/O will provide revolutionary real-time imaging at high accuracy.