A generalized temporal phase unwrapping algorithm for three-dimensional profilometry

A generalized temporal phase unwrapping algorithm is proposed for absolute phase measurement of object surfaces with complex topography. We first make comments on error analysis of various temporal phase unwrapping (TPU) algorithms and point out problems existing in these techniques. We present a generalized TPU algorithm (GTPU), which eliminates some limitations imposed on the fringe sequence for the classical TPU algorithms. So the desired number of fringes can be determined according to practical situation, leading to a flexible method for phase reconstruction. In addition, compared with the classical TPU algorithms, GTPU has better noise immunity and less computational complexity. Theoretical analysis and experiment results are presented to show the validity of the proposed algorithm.