Phase shift method based on object translation for full field automatic 3-D surface reconstruction from moire topograms

A new method fur full field automatic 3-D surface reconstruction is proposed which makes use of multiple contourograms shifted in phase by object translation. The method is demonstrated for shadow moire topography. It is shown that surface reconstruction can be done fast and with a resolution at least 10 times higher than the fringe distance of the measuring setup. Convexity and concavity of the surface are automatically determined. Also shown is the possibility of measuring irregular surfaces with very sudden height jumps.