Binary pattern deflectometry

Deflectometry is widely used to accurately calculate the slopes of any specular reflective surface, ranging from car bodies to nanometer-level mirrors. This paper presents a new deflectometry technique using binary patterns of increasing frequency to retrieve the surface slopes. Binary Pattern Deflectometry allows almost instant, simple, and accurate slope retrieval, which is required for applications using mobile devices. The paper details the theory of this deflectometry method and the challenges of its implementation. Furthermore, the binary pattern method can also be combined with a classic phase-shifting method to eliminate the need of a complex unwrapping algorithm and retrieve the absolute phase, especially in cases like segmented optics, where spatial algorithms have difficulties. Finally, whether it is used as a stand-alone or combined with phase-shifting, the binary patterns can, within seconds, calculate the slopes of any specular reflective surface.