Double-pattern triangular pulse width modulation technique for high-accuracy high-speed 3D shape measurement

Using 1-bit binary patterns for three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement has been demonstrated as being advantageous over using 8-bit sinusoidal patterns in terms of achievable speeds. However, the phase quality generated by binary pattern(s) typically are not high if only a small number of phase-shifted patterns are used. This paper proposes a method to improve the phase quality by representing each pattern with the difference of two binary patterns: the first binary pattern is generated by triangular pulse width modulation (TPWM) technique, and the second being π shifted from the first pattern that is also generated by TPWM technique. The phase is retrieved by applying a three-step phase-shifting algorithm to the difference patterns. Through optimizing the modulation frequency of the triangular carrier signal, we demonstrate that a high-quality phase can be generated for a wide range of fringe periods (e.g., from 18 to 1140 pixels) with only six binary patterns. Since only 1-bit binary patterns are required for 3D shape measurement, this paper will present a real-time 3D shape measurement system that can achieve 30 Hz.