Binocular stereovision system for three-dimensional reconstruction of aluminum alloy weld pool in pulsed GMA welding

From observing the morphology of weld pool in real-time skilled operator can acquire weld status information and adjust welding parameters. In fact the observed weld pool image is stereo due to disparity-tiny differences in the eyes when imaging, which is in accordance with the principle of binocular stereo vision. It is a challenging task to recover three- dimensional surface of weld pool in pulsed GMA welding due to the unstable and strong arc intensity, small size, fast flow speed of weld pool and its high reflectivity. In this paper a synchronous binocular stereovision system was proposed and clear weld pool images of aluminum alloy were obtained after exposure analyzing and controlling. The reconstruction accuracy of the binocular stereo system was calculated by a special three-dimensional oblique plate with solid circles array and the feasibility of the system was verified.