Laser Scanning, Theory and Applications

Abstract

Ever since the invention of laser by Schawlow and Townes in 1958, various innovative ideas of laser-based applications emerge very year. At the same time, scientists and engineers keep on improving laser's power density, size, and cost which patch up the gap between theories and implementations. More importantly, our everyday life is changed and influenced by lasers even though we may not be fully aware of its existence. For example, it is there in cross-continent phone calls, price tag scanning in supermarkets, pointers in the classrooms, printers in the offices, accurate metal cutting in machine shops, etc. In this volume, we focus the recent developments related to laser scanning, a very powerful technique used in features detection and measurement. We invited researchers who do fundamental works in laser scanning theories or apply the principles of laser scanning to tackle problems encountered in medicine, geodesic survey, biology and archaeology. Twenty-eight chapters contributed by authors around the world to constitute this comprehensive book.