Influence of projector pixel shape on ultrahigh-resolution 3D shape measurement

The state-of-art three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement with digital fringe projection (DFP) techniques assume that the influence of projector pixel shape is negligible. However, our research reveals that when the camera pixel size is much smaller than the projector pixel size in object space (e.g., 1/5), the shape of projector pixel can play a critical role on ultimate measurement quality. This paper evaluates the performance of two shapes of projector pixels: rectangular and diamond shaped. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrated that when the camera pixel size is significantly smaller than the projector pixel size, it is advantageous for ultrahigh resolution 3D shape measurement system to use a projector with rectangular-shaped pixels than a projector with diamond-shaped pixels.