High speed, high-resolution, and accurate 3D scanning would open doors to many new applications in graphics, robotics, science, and medicine by enabling the accurate scanning of deformable objects during interactions. Past attempts to use structured light, time-of-flight, and stereo in high-speed settings have usually required tradeoffs in resolution or inaccuracy. In this paper, we introduce a method that enables, for the first time, 3D scanning at 450 frames per second at 1 Megapixel, or 1,450 frames per second at 0.4 Megapixel in an environment with controlled lighting. The key idea is to use a per-pixel lookup table that maps colors to depths, which is built using a linear stage. Imperfections, such as lens-distortion and sensor defects are baked into the calibration. We describe our method and test it on a novel hardware prototype. We compare the system with both ground-truth geometry as well as commercially available dynamic sensors like the Microsoft Kinect and Intel Realsense. Our results show the system acquiring geometry of objects undergoing high-speed deformations and oscillations and demonstrate the ability to recover physical properties from the reconstructions.

Fossils are crucial for understanding our natural history and the digitalization of fossils has paved the way for paleontologists to share and study them in greater detail. Yet, many fossil-dense regions, in particular low- and middle-income countries, lack the resources to digitalize their vast collections. This project reports on a collaboration between paleontologists and computer scientists to design, build, and operate a device that can be deployed in the field for digitizing a collection of thousands of fossils. We introduce PaleoScan, a user-friendly, cost-effective, high-volume scanner designed to expedite the digitization of extensive fossil collections. PaleoScan is a self-contained 3D scanning system consisting of a light and compact mirrorless camera, a microcontroller, a ChArUco calibration board, and user-controlled LEDs. Software and data processing is cloud-based, where the user interacts with the system through a web application. We deployed PaleoScan in a museum in Brazil with a world-class fossil collection. Our early results reveal its potential to revolutionize the scanning process for fossils.