Phase error analysis and compensation considering ambient light for phase measuring profilometry

•We analyse accurate phase error model considering ambient light.•The phase error is related to not only gamma non-linearity but also ambient light.•We perform experiments which confirm that ambient light can affect phase error.•We propose a novel method to correct phase error under any ambient lighting condition.

The accuracy of phase measuring profilometry (PMP) system based on phase-shifting method is susceptible to gamma non-linearity of the projector–camera pair and uncertain ambient light inevitably. Although many researches on gamma model and phase error compensation methods have been implemented, the effect of ambient light is not explicit all along. In this paper, we perform theoretical analysis and experiments of phase error compensation taking account of both gamma non-linearity and uncertain ambient light. First of all, a mathematical phase error model is proposed to illustrate the reason of phase error generation in detail. We propose that the phase error is related not only to the gamma non-linearity of the projector–camera pair, but also to the ratio of intensity modulation to average intensity in the fringe patterns captured by the camera which is affected by the ambient light. Subsequently, an accurate phase error compensation algorithm is proposed based on the mathematical model, where the relationship between phase error and ambient light is illustrated. Experimental results with four-step phase-shifting PMP system show that the proposed algorithm can alleviate the phase error effectively even though the ambient light is considered.