Three-dimensional profilometry based on shift estimation of projected fringe patterns

This paper presents a new approach to fringe pattern profilometry. In this paper, a generalized model for describing the relationship between the projected fringe pattern and deformed fringe pattern is derived, where the projected fringe pattern can be arbitrary rather than being limited to be sinusoidal as those for the conventional approaches. Based on this model, a new approach is proposed to reconstruct the three-dimensional object surface by estimating the shift between the projected and deformed fringe patterns. Additionally, theoretical analysis and computer simulation results are presented, both of which show the proposed approach can significantly improve the measurement accuracy, especially when the fringe patterns are distorted by unknown factors.