{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T11:07:00Z","timestamp":1790075220550,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789948800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004731","name":"Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["LQ24F050004"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["LQ24F050004"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004731","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["LQ24F050004"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["LQ24F050004"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04aqat463","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"National Market Supervision Administration Quality-Promoting Chain Project of China","award":["ZLQL2025007-03"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZLQL2025007-03"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Screws are critical mechanical components, and their geometric accuracy directly determines the performance and reliability of mechanical systems. However, conventional contact-based inspection methods are time-consuming and limited to sparse sampling. Existing non-contact optical techniques often suffer from insufficient edge localization accuracy due to discrete point spacing. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a vision-guided point cloud refinement measurement method. The system integrates a laser scanner with a camera, where the laser scanning serves as the primary channel for acquiring three-dimensional point clouds, and the vision system provides high-resolution thread edge positions through sub-pixel localization and interpolation. A joint 2D-3D registration procedure is established to transfer the 2D sub-pixel edge localization precision to the corresponding 3D points, effectively correcting the spatial positions of thread crests. A coarse-to-fine processing pipeline is then applied, encompassing PCA-based principal axis alignment, Fourier transform-based coarse pitch estimation, and Gaussian pyramid-based multi-resolution refinement, to extract the pitch from the refined point cloud. Experimental validation on a real screw specimen confirms that the proposed method achieves a pitch measurement error of 0.0423 mm, demonstrating performance comparable to the pure vision-based method. It can provide a reliable solution for high-precision screw thread inspection.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26185976","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T10:21:48Z","timestamp":1790072508000},"page":"5976","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["A Vision-Guided Point Cloud Refinement Method for Helical Surface Measurement: A Case Study on Screw Thread Pitch"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"Weimin","family":"Lou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Huan","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"project-administration","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Peng","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Jian","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Ying","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Kaiqing","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Digital Precision Measurement Technology Research, Zhejiang Institute of Quality Sciences, Hangzhou 310018, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5899-4816","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lu","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Metrology Measurement and Instrument, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 311222, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4437-2212","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ming","family":"Kong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Metrology Measurement and Instrument, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 311222, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Yuanhai","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314200, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"project-administration","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Weixin","family":"Ruan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zhejiang Chenxin Machine Equipments Co., Ltd., Shaoxing 312300, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Xinlei","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Tiezheng Testing Technology Co., Ltd., Chongqing 405800, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zhang, M., Sheng, Z.C., Xiong, J., Saren, Q., Chen, X., and Zhang, Z.J. 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