Removal of jitter noise in 3D shape recovery from image focus by using Kalman filter.

In regard to Shape from Focus, one critical factor impacting system application is mechanical vibration of the translational stage causing jitter noise along the optical axis. This noise is not detectable by simply observing the image. However, when focus measures are applied, inaccuracies in the depth occur. In this article, jitter noise and focus curves are modeled by Gaussian distribution and quadratic function, respectively. Then Kalman filter is designed and applied to eliminate this noise in the focus curves, as a post-processing step after the focus measure application. Experiments are implemented with simulated objects and real objects to show usefulness of proposed algorithm.