William H Haskell

US Patent:

6891148, May 10, 2005

Filed:

Feb 25, 2002

Appl. No.:

10/082413

Inventors:

Jorge E. Rivera - Titusville FL, US
Robert C. Youngquist - Cocoa FL, US
Robert B. Cox - New Smyrna Beach FL, US
William D. Haskell - Mims FL, US
Charles G. Stevenson - Mims FL, US

Assignee:

The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronatics and Space Administration - Washington DC

International Classification:

G06M007/00
G01C003/00
G03B017/18

US Classification:

250221, 250216, 2502221, 33276, 396290

Abstract:

A scaling device projects a known optical pattern into the field of view of a camera, which can be employed as a reference scale in a resulting photograph of a remote object, for example. The device comprises an optical beam projector that projects two or more spaced, parallel optical beams onto a surface of a remotely located object to be photographed. The resulting beam spots or lines on the object are spaced from one another by a known, predetermined distance. As a result, the size of other objects or features in the photograph can be determined through comparison of their size to the known distance between the beam spots. Preferably, the device is a small, battery-powered device that can be attached to a camera and employs one or more laser light sources and associated optics to generate the parallel light beams. In a first embodiment of the invention, a single laser light source is employed, but multiple parallel beams are generated thereby through use of beam splitting optics. In another embodiment, multiple individual laser light sources are employed that are mounted in the device parallel to one another to generate the multiple parallel beams.