NLiPsCalib: An Efficient Calibration Framework for High-Fidelity 3D Reconstruction of Curved Visuotactile Sensors

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Qin, Xuhao, Zhao, Feiyu, Leng, Yatao, Hu, Runze, Xiao, Chenxi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Qin, Xuhao
Zhao, Feiyu
Leng, Yatao
Hu, Runze
Xiao, Chenxi
author_facet Qin, Xuhao
Zhao, Feiyu
Leng, Yatao
Hu, Runze
Xiao, Chenxi
contents Recent advances in visuotactile sensors increasingly employ biomimetic curved surfaces to enhance sensorimotor capabilities. Although such curved visuotactile sensors enable more conformal object contact, their perceptual quality is often degraded by non-uniform illumination, which reduces reconstruction accuracy and typically necessitates calibration. Existing calibration methods commonly rely on customized indenters and specialized devices to collect large-scale photometric data, but these processes are expensive and labor-intensive. To overcome these calibration challenges, we present NLiPsCalib, a physics-consistent and efficient calibration framework for curved visuotactile sensors. NLiPsCalib integrates controllable near-field light sources and leverages Near-Light Photometric Stereo (NLiPs) to estimate contact geometry, simplifying calibration to just a few simple contacts with everyday objects. We further introduce NLiPsTac, a controllable-light-source tactile sensor developed to validate our framework. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach enables high-fidelity 3D reconstruction across diverse curved form factors with a simple calibration procedure. We emphasize that our approach lowers the barrier to developing customized visuotactile sensors of diverse geometries, thereby making visuotactile sensing more accessible to the broader community.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_09319
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle NLiPsCalib: An Efficient Calibration Framework for High-Fidelity 3D Reconstruction of Curved Visuotactile Sensors
Qin, Xuhao
Zhao, Feiyu
Leng, Yatao
Hu, Runze
Xiao, Chenxi
Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Recent advances in visuotactile sensors increasingly employ biomimetic curved surfaces to enhance sensorimotor capabilities. Although such curved visuotactile sensors enable more conformal object contact, their perceptual quality is often degraded by non-uniform illumination, which reduces reconstruction accuracy and typically necessitates calibration. Existing calibration methods commonly rely on customized indenters and specialized devices to collect large-scale photometric data, but these processes are expensive and labor-intensive. To overcome these calibration challenges, we present NLiPsCalib, a physics-consistent and efficient calibration framework for curved visuotactile sensors. NLiPsCalib integrates controllable near-field light sources and leverages Near-Light Photometric Stereo (NLiPs) to estimate contact geometry, simplifying calibration to just a few simple contacts with everyday objects. We further introduce NLiPsTac, a controllable-light-source tactile sensor developed to validate our framework. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach enables high-fidelity 3D reconstruction across diverse curved form factors with a simple calibration procedure. We emphasize that our approach lowers the barrier to developing customized visuotactile sensors of diverse geometries, thereby making visuotactile sensing more accessible to the broader community.
title NLiPsCalib: An Efficient Calibration Framework for High-Fidelity 3D Reconstruction of Curved Visuotactile Sensors
topic Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09319