Article

Transactions of the Institute of

Measurement and Control
Three-dimensional shape 1–11
Ó The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0142331219848029
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Guangkai Fu, Yiping Cao , Yapin Wang, Yingying Wan,

Lu Wang and Chengmeng Li

Abstract
A three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement method based on binary fringe conventional projection is proposed. In traditional 3D shape measure-
ment methods based on binary fringe projection, the binary fringe is used as an approximate sinusoidal fringe by defocusing projection or even directly
used as an approximate sinusoidal fringe by nonlinear error suppression feature of large-step phase measuring profilometry (PMP). In the proposed
method (Prop), neither defocusing projection is needed nor large-step PMP must be used. When the binary fringe is conventionally projected on the
measured object, just by filtering operation in spatial frequency domain from the captured deformed pattern, the nearly unbroken sinusoidal deformed
pattern can be extracted efficiently. While N (N ø 3) frames binary fringes with 1/N period misalignment between each adjacent fringe are convention-
ally projected onto the measured object sequentially, the corresponding nearly unbroken N-step sinusoidal deformed patterns extracted from the N
frames captured deformed patterns can be used to reconstruct the 3D shape of the measured object with N-step PMP algorithm. The experimental
results show the feasibility and validity of the Prop. It is more flexible for its optional fringe period and optional phase-shifting steps. It has potential
application in the real-time 3D shape measurement.

Keywords
Three-dimensional shape measurement, phase measuring profilometry, binary fringe, low-pass filter

Introduction but these methods may somehow be more time consuming.

The optical three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement tech-
nique based on structured light projection has been widely
applied into many fields such as stereo vision, production
quality inspection, face recognition 3D printing and so on
with its advantages of non-contacting, full-field analysis, high
precision, high resolution and easy to information processing
(Gorthi and Rastogi, 2010; Lee et al., 2017; Vázquez and
Cuevas, 2014; Xu et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2013). The exist-
ing two most popular 3D shape measurement profilometries
based on fringe projection are Fourier transform profilometry
(FTP) and phase measuring profilometry (PMP) (Chen et al.,
2017; Srinivasan et al., 1984; Takeda and Mutoh, 1983; Wu
et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2017). FTP can reconstruct the 3D
shape of the measured object from only one captured
deformed pattern (Guo et al., 2018; Su et al., 2001). However,
its measuring accuracy may be limited due to filtering opera-
tion (Wan et al., 2018). PMP can guarantee higher measuring
accuracy due to its full-field measurement and point-to-point
inverse trigonometric calculation. However, the sinusoidal
characteristic of the captured sinusoidal pattern used in PMP
may be affected by the digital light projector (DLP) with
gamma nonlinearity (Li and Li, 2011). In order to solve the
gamma nonlinearity problem, some corresponding gamma
nonlinearity correction and compensation methods are pro-
posed (Guo et al., 2004; Hoang et al., 2010; Lü et al., 2017),
Furthermore, the sinusoidal fringe refresh rate of the digital
projector is usually limited to less than 120Hz due to the
grayscale values of the sinusoidal fringe is from 0 to 255
(Zhang et al., 2010). It may be difficult to satisfy the require-
ments for real-time 3D shape measurement that requires the
fringe refresh rate more than 120Hz (Zuo et al., 2012). In
order to improve the fringe refresh rate of the projector, the
PMP based on defocused binary fringe projection is proposed
(Lei and Zhang, 2009; Li et al., 2014). The binary fringe
refresh rate of the projector can be tens of kHz by using the
recently developed digital light processing discovery technol-
ogy due to the binary feature of the binary fringe (Hofling
and Aswendt, 2009). The corresponding sinusoidal fringe pat-
tern can be approximated by properly defocusing the pro-
jected binary fringe. Su et al. (1992) proposed a method for
automated PMP by using defocused Rochi grating projection,
but an additional defocusing device is needed and the mea-
surement range may be limited by the lesser depth of field
caused by defocusing (Zhang, 2018). In order to avoid the
Department of Opto-electronics, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Corresponding author:
Yiping Cao, Department of Opto-electronics, Sichuan University,
Chengdu 610064, China.
Email: ypcao@scu.edu.cn
2 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)
Figure 1. Sinusoidal fringe pattern extracting process: (a) Captured fringe pattern, (b) Fourier spectrum, (c) Remained spectrum, (d) Extracted
sinusoidal fringe pattern.
above problem and the difficulty of calibrating the defocused
projector in defocusing binary fringe projection methods,
Ekstrand and Zhang (2011) proposed a PMP based on nearly
focused binary fringe. This method directly takes the binary
fringe as an approximate sinusoidal fringe by the nonlinear
error suppression feature of large-step PMP. In order to real-
ize 3D shape measurement, the period of the binary fringe
must be more than 36 pixels and a more than nine-step
phase-shifting algorithm must be applied. So, the measuring
accuracy may be limited and the large-step PMP may be time
consuming.
In this paper, a PMP based on binary fringe conventional
projection is proposed. Neither the large period more than 36
pixels of the binary fringe must be needed nor the large
phase-shifting steps of more than nine steps must be applied.
It is more flexible for its optional fringe period and optional
phase-shifting steps.
Principles
The sinusoidal fringe pattern extracting principle
In the 3D shape measurement based on binary fringe projec-
tion (Ekstrand and Zhang, 2011), the period of the binary
fringe is supposed to be T0 , then the binary fringe can be mod-
eled as a rectangular window with a width of T0 =2 for non-
zero regions, which is called rect ½x=(T0 =2), convolves with a
serial of Dirac delta functions (d(x)) with a pitch of T0 one
another, which is called comb(x=T0 ). Its gray value g(x, y) can
be expressed as
   
x x
g(x, y) = A0 rect  comb
T0 =2 T0
Where A0 is a constant played as the non-zero grayscale of
the binary fringe, * denotes the convolution operation. The
Fourier spectrum of g(x, y) can be expressed as G(fx , fy )
 
A0 T0 X
j=‘
T0 fx
G(fx , fy ) =  sinc d(fx  jf0 )
2 j = ‘ 2 When N (N ø 3) frames encoded binary fringes with 1/N
where f0 = 1=T0 is the fundamental frequency of the Fourier
spectrum. By introducing a proper rectangular window low-
pass filter, the zero frequency spectrum, the positive and
negative fundamental frequency spectrums G0 (fx , fy ) can be fil-
tered out as
   
A0 T0 1
G0 (fx , fy ) = d(fx ) + sinc ½d(fx + f0 ) + d(fx  f0 )
2 2
ð3Þ
By inverse Fourier transform for G0 (fx , fy ), the nearly
unbroken sinusoidal fringe pattern g0 (x, y) can be extracted as
   
0 A0 T0 1 2px
g (x, y) = + A0 T0 sinc cos ð4Þ
2 2 T0
Figure 1 shows the whole process of extracting nearly unbro-
ken sinusoidal fringe pattern from the captured fringe pattern
in detail. Firstly, when the encoded binary fringe is conven-
tionally projected onto the reference plane by a DLP without
defocusing, the corresponding fringe pattern is captured by a
complementary mental oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera,
as shown in Figure 1(a). By fast Fourier transform (FFT), the
Fourier spectrum information of the captured fringe pattern
can be obtained, as shown in Figure 1(b). It can be seen that
even though there are many higher harmonic frequencies
existed in the spatial frequency domain, the spectrum distri-
bution remains discrete. By introducing a proper rectangular
window low-pass filter, the region of interest (ROI) frequency
components, as shown in the dotted box in Figure 1(b) is
remains, as shown in Figure 1(c). At last, by inverse Fourier
transform (IFT), the nearly unbroken sinusoidal fringe pat-
tern can be retrieved successfully, as shown in Figure 1(d). In
the same way, the nearly unbroken sinusoidal deformed pat-
ð1Þ tern also can be retrieved from the captured deformed pattern
when the encoded binary fringe is projected onto the mea-
sured object. Furthermore, no defocusing projection is needed
in Prop.
The 3D shape measurement principle of the Prop
ð2Þ
period misalignment between each adjacent fringes are con-
ventionally projected onto the reference plane by the DLP
one by one, the corresponding N frames fringe patterns
gn (x, y) are captured by the CMOS camera as
Fu et al. 3
   
x x  nT0 =N So, the 3D shape of the measured object is reconstructed
gn (x, y) = A0 rect  comb
T0 =2 T0 ð5Þ by the phase-to-height mapping relationship (Su et al., 2004)
n = 0, 1, 2, 3 . . . N  1 as

The corresponding nearly unbroken sinusoidal fringe pat- 1 1 1

terns with an equivalent shifting-phase of 2p=N can be
extracted from the captured fringe patterns by using the
above-mentioned process. These extracted nearly unbroken
sinusoidal fringe patterns Inref (x, y) can be expressed as
 
2px 2pn
Inref (x, y) = A(x, y) + B(x, y) cos + u0 (x, y) + ð6Þ
T N
Where T is the pitch of the captured fringe pattern, A0 T =2
simplified as A(x, y) represents the background light intensity,
A0 T sinc(1=2) simplified as B(x, y) reflects the contrast of the
fringe pattern, u0 (x, y) is the phase caused by the reference
plane and it can be expressed as
2 3
P
N1
ref
6 I n (x, y) sin (2p=N ) 7
6 =0 7
u0 (x, y) = arctan6 nN1 7 ð7Þ
4 P ref 5 S2 are shown in Figure 2(d); it can be seen that the extracted
In (x, y) cos (2p=N )
n=0
Because u0 (x, y) is wrapped in (  p, p due to the arctan
function. It should be unwrapped to be F0 (x, y) with a phase
unwrapping algorithm (Chen et al., 2013), by following a
phase unwrapping path and calculating the difference between
the current pixel’s phase and its adjacent pixel’s phase on
u0 (x, y), if the difference is more than p, the current pixel’s
phase is unwrapped by subtracting 2p, if the difference is less
than -p, the current pixel’s phase is unwrapped by adding 2p.
Then moving on to another pixel’s phase and repeating this
process until the last pixel’s phase is unwrapped. After that,
u0 (x, y) is unwrapped to be F0 and be saved in the computer
in advance. While measuring, the same encoded binary fringes
are projected onto the measured object by the DLP one by
one for N-step, sequentially. In the same way, the correspond-
ing nearly unbroken sinusoidal deformed patterns Indef (x, y)
extracted from the captured deformed patterns can be
expressed as
 
2px
Indef (x, y) = A(x, y) + B(x, y) cos + u(x, y) +
T N
= a(x, y) + b(x, y) + c(x, y) 2 ð11Þ
h(x, y) C(x, y) C (x, y)
where the system constants a(x, y),b(x, y) and c(x, y) can be
calibrated by several planes with known heights.
The five-step phase-shifting algorithm is taken for an
example to show the PMP principle of the Prop in detail, as
shown in Figure 2. When the encoded five binary fringes with
1/5 period misalignment between each adjacent fringes are
projected onto the reference plane, the corresponding five
fringe patterns (P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5) are captured, as shown
in Figure 2(a). Figure 2(b) shows the cutaway views of P1 and
P2; it can be seen that the captured fringe patterns are indeed
misaligned 1/5 period one another. Then the five captured
fringe patterns are processed with the Prop as discussed
above; the corresponding five nearly unbroken sinusoidal
fringe patterns (S1, S2, S3, S4 and S5) can be extracted success-
fully, as shown in Figure 2(c). The cutaway views of S1 and
fringe patterns’ sinusoidal features remain obvious and they
have an equivalent shifting-phase of 2p/5 one another. So,
the 3D shape of the measured object can be reconstructed by
using the N frames’ nearly unbroken sinusoidal deformed
patterns extracted from the N frames captured deformed pat-
terns with the Prop when the N frames encoded binary fringes
misaligned 1/N period between each adjacent fringes are con-
ventionally projected onto the measured object.
Meanwhile, the complexity of the measured object may
have an effect on the extracted sinusoidal deformed pattern.
In order to analyze the influence of the measured object’s
complexity on the extracted deformed pattern while filtering
operation is utilized, the Fourier spectrum characteristic of
the captured deformed pattern is analyzed systematically
when the encoded binary fringe is projected onto the different
complexity objects. The corresponding Fourier spectrum
amplitudes of G(fx , fy ), as expressed in equation (2), can be
simplified as
jX
=‘
2pn jG(fx , fy )j = j Aj d(fx  jf0 )j ð12Þ
ð8Þ j = ‘

where u(x, y) is the phase introduced by the object under test. where j denotes the Fourier spectrum order number. It means
It also can be expressed as that the Fourier spectrum of the binary fringe is discrete due
to periodicity of the binary fringe. It can be regarded as the
2 3 sum of delta functions with different amplitudes, as shown in
NP
1
def
6 I n (x, y) sin (2p=N ) 7 Figure 3(a). When the binary fringe is projected onto a mea-
6 0 7
u(x, y) = arctan6 nN= 7 ð9Þ sured object, the corresponding Fourier spectrum of the cap-
4 P def
1 5 tured deformed pattern will be broadened as many spectrum
In (x, y) cos (2p=N )
n=0 islands modulated by the profile of the measured object. The
widths of these spectrum islands depend on the complexity of
It also should be unwrapped to be F(x, y). The phase C(x, y) the measured object. If a planar of paper object is measured
caused by the height of the measured object is the difference with the Prop, the corresponding spectrum islands of the cap-
between F(x, y) and F0 (x, y). It can be expressed as tured deformed pattern are shown as in Figure 3(b); it can be
seen that these spectrum islands’ distributions are separated
C(x, y) = F(x, y)  F0 (x, y) ð10Þ completely, which is called condition 1. Just by introducing a
4 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)
Figure 2. The PMP principle with the Prop: (a) Captured five fringe patterns, (b) Cutaway views of P1 and P2, (c) Extracted five sinusoidal fringe
patterns, (d) Cutaway views of S1 and S2.
rectangular window low-pass filter, as shown in the dotted
box in Figure 3(b), the zero frequency component and the
fundamental frequency components containing the phase
information of the measured object can be retained perfectly.
In this condition, the Prop has higher measuring accuracy. If
the measured object becomes more complex gradually, each
spectrum island will also be broadened gradually. While the
first order spectrum island is just linked the second order
spectrum island without any spectrum aliasing each other, as
shown in Figure 3(c) which is called condition 2, it is found
that the complexity of the measured object has a critical
value. At this condition, the sinusoidal deformed patterns can
be extracted unbrokenly. If the measured object becomes fur-
ther more relatively complex, it will more or less break the
extracted sinusoidal deformed pattern due to the spectrum
aliasing. But if the spectrum aliasing is small enough, as
shown in Figure 3(d), it can be seen the first order spectrum
island and the second order spectrum island are overlapped
partly, which is called condition 3. At this condition, the
extracted deformed patterns are called the nearly unbroken
sinusoidal deformed patterns in the Prop. It may lead to some
nonnegligible measuring errors. However, in the Prop, all the
extracted N frames deformed patterns are used to reconstruct
the 3D shape of the measured object with N-step phase-
shifting PMP. The measuring errors can be improved by the
constraint of multiple frames deformed patterns and the com-
plementarity of the N frames phase-shifting deformed pat-
terns. Because this condition is more comprehensive, we have
been working to uncover the relationship of the measured
object’s complexity and the measuring accuracy. If the
measured object becomes much more complex and has many
large discontinuous regions on its surface, the corresponding
spectrum islands distribution is shown in Figure 3(e); it can
be seen that the first order spectrum island and the second
order spectrum island are much overlapped, which is called
condition 4. Even if by introducing another rectangle window
low-pass filter, as shown in the dotted box in Figure 3(e), the
retained frequency components containing the phase informa-
tion of the measured object are almost broken, the corre-
sponding sinusoidal deformed patterns are difficult to extract.
So, if the measured object is too complex to extract the sinu-
soidal deformed pattern due to the over frequency aliasing
between the high frequency components modulated by the
measured object and the higher order harmonic components
of the binary fringe, the Prop may be limited at above condi-
tion 4. Although the Prop may be limited for measuring the
over-complex objects, it is effective for measuring the 3D
shapes of measured objects at above 1, 2 and 3 conditions.
Experimental results and analysis
The experimental system of the Prop is set up as shown in
Figure 4. It mainly consists of a DLP (Texas Instruments
DLP light crafter 4500 (DLP 4500) with a resolution of 912
pixel 3 1140 pixel) and a CMOS camera (Baumer HXC20
with a resolution of 2048 pixel 3 1088 pixel). The camera
uses a 12 mm focal length lens (ZLKC CCTV LENS
VM1212MP). The DLP and the CMOS camera are placed
with an angle and remain untouched in the experiment. The
3D shape information data is processed on a computer whose
Fu et al.
Figure 3. The spectrum distributions schematic diagram: (a) Spectrum
distributions of binary fringe, (b) Spectrum distributions of planar object,
(c) Spectrum distributions of relative smooth object, (d) Spectrum
distributions of relative complex object, (e) Spectrum distributions of
over-complex object.
configuration is Intel(R) core (TM) i5-4590 CPU@3.30 GHz
and 8GB extendible physical memory.
Experiments for measuring objects
In order to verify the feasibility of the Prop, lots of objects are
measured. One of the measured objects is a crab model, as
shown in Figure 5(a). In this experiment, the five-step phase-
shifting algorithm is used and the period of the binary fringe
is 20 pixels. Figure 5(b) shows the captured five deformed pat-
terns, the corresponding Fourier spectrum is shown in Figure
5(c); it can be seen that the high frequency components modu-
lated by the measured object are hardly overlapped with the
higher harmonic components of the binary fringe. The corre-
sponding extracted five nearly unbroken sinusoidal deformed
patterns with an equivalent shifting-phase of 2p=5 between
any adjacent two patterns are shown in Figure 5(d) with the
Prop. Figures 5(e)–(f) show the corresponding wrapped phase
and the reconstructed 3D shape result, respectively. It can be
seen that the surface of the measured crab model can be well
5
Figure 4. The experimental system set up.
reconstructed. So, the Prop is feasible for measuring the rela-
tive complex objects, as discussed in Figure 3.
Comparative experiments
In order to further verify the validity and the measuring accu-
racy of the Prop, several compared experiments are con-
ducted between Zhang’s method (Zhang) (Ekstrand and
Zhang, 2011) and the Prop. It is well known that the large-
step sinusoidal fringe phase-shifting PMP is a much more
accurate method for measuring the 3D shape of the measured
object (Chen et al., 2018). Here a 10-step sinusoidal phase-
shifting PMP (SPMP) measuring result is introduced as the
quasi measuring result. One of the measured objects is a face
model as shown in Figure 6(a). In Zhang’s method, in order
to realize 3D shape measurement, it directly took the binary
fringe as the approximate sinusoidal fringe by the nonlinear
error suppression feature of large-step phase-shifting PMP. It
requires not only large period more than 36 pixels of the bin-
ary fringe but also more than nine-step phase-shifting PMP.
In order to compare the measuring accuracy under the same
condition between Zhang’s method and the Prop, the nine-
step phase-shifting PMP and the 36 pixels period of binary
fringe are also used in the Prop. Figure 6(b) shows the nine
captured deformed patterns with both Zhang’s method and
the Prop; Figure 6(c) shows one of the nine corresponding
sinusoidal deformed patterns extracted from the captured
deformed patterns, as shown in Figure 6(b), with the Prop;
Figure 6(d) shows one of the 10 captured deformed patterns
with SPMP. The 3D shape reconstruction results with
Zhang’s method, the Prop and SPMP are shown in Figures
6(e)–(g), respectively; it can be seen that there are some rip-
ples on the surface of the reconstructed 3D shape with
Zhang’s method, but the surface of the reconstructed 3D
shape with the Prop is smooth and very close to that with
SPMP. In order to further analyze the reconstructed 3D
shape results of the measured face model in detail, their cut-
away views of above three methods at 250 rows from 1 to 450
columns are shown in Figure 7(a). The corresponding zoom-
in of the ‘‘nose’’ part in the dotted rectangle region (A) with
violent changes is shown in Figure 7(b) and the
6 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)

Figure 5. 3D shape reconstructed experiment: (a) Measured crab model, (b) Captured deformed pattern, (c) Corresponding Fourier spectrum, (d)
Extracted deformed patterns, (e)-(f) Wrapped phase and reconstructed 3D shape result.

Figure 6. Comparative experiments: (a) Measured face model, (b) Captured deformed pattern with both Zhang and Prop, (c) Extracted deformed
pattern with Prop, (d) Captured deformed patterns with SPMP, (e) Reconstructed result with Zhang, (f) Reconstructed result with Prop, (g)
Reconstructed result with SPMP.

corresponding zoom-in of the ‘‘jaw’’ part in the dotted circle
region (B) with slow changes is shown in Figure 7(c); it can
be seen that whether the violent changes exist or not on the
profile, the measuring accuracy of the Prop is always higher
than that of Zhang’s method and close to that of SPMP. So,
the Prop has higher measuring accuracy than that of Zhang
and close to that of SPMP.
Because the filtering operation is introduced in the Prop,
several compared experiments are also conducted between the
Prop and FTP (Takeda and Mutoh, 1983) in which the filter-
ing operation is also introduced. One of the measured objects
is a ‘‘heart’’ model as shown in Figure 8(a). Figure 8(b) shows
one of the five captured deformed patterns with the Prop;
Figure 8(c) shows the corresponding extracted nearly unbro-
ken sinusoidal deformed patterns with the Prop; Figure 8(d)
shows one of the 10 captured deformed patterns with SPMP;
Figure 8(e) shows the directly reconstructed 3D shape with
FTP from Figure 8(d); Figure 8(f) shows the reconstructed
Fu et al. 7

Figure 7. Cutaway views of reconstructed results in Figure.6: (a) Cutaway views at 250 rows in Figure.6(e)-(f), (b)-(c) Zooms in of A and B regions
in (a).

Figure 8. Compared experiments: (a) Measured ‘‘heart’’ model, (b) Captured deformed pattern with Prop, (c) Extracted deformed pattern with
Prop, (d) Captured deformed pattern with SPMP, (e) Reconstructed result with FTP, (f) Reconstructed result with Prop, (g) Reconstructed result with
SPMP, (h) Cutaway views at 140 rows in (e)–(g), (i)–(j) Zooms in of A and B in (h).

3D shape with the Prop from the five extracted sinusoidal
deformed patterns as shown in Figure 8(c); Figure 8(g) shows
the reconstructed 3D shape with SPMP from the 10 captured
sinusoidal deformed patterns, as shown in Figure 8(d). It can
be seen from Figures 8(e)–(g) that there are some ripples on
the surface of the reconstructed 3D shape with FTP, but the
surface of the reconstructed 3D shape with the Prop is smooth
and very close to that with SPMP. In order to analyze the
results in detail, their cutaway views at 140 rows from 1 to
255 columns by the above three methods are shown in Figure
8(h), the corresponding zoom in of ‘‘ear’’ part (the dotted cir-
cle region, A) and the top part (the dotted rectangle region,
B) are shown in Figure 8(i) and Figure 8(j), respectively. It
can be seen that the ‘‘ear’’ part in A is lost with FTP but well
reconstructed with the Prop and much closer to that with
SPMP. Even though in the smooth region B, the profile with
the Prop is still much closer to that with SPMP than that with
FTP. It means that the measuring errors caused by the
8 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)
Table 1. Measuring results of different height planes (mm)
h0 3.00 5.50 10.00
Method Zhang Prop Zhang Prop Zhang
havg 3.039 3.028 5.476 5.488 10.040
MAE 0.081 0.071 0.082 0.061 0.068
RMS 0.043 0.033 0.046 0.030 0.035
filtering operation can be improved by the constraint of mul-
tiple frames deformed patterns and the complementarity of
the five frames phase-shifting deformed patterns. All in all,
the measuring accuracy of the Prop is higher than that of
FTP and can be close to that of SPMP.
Measuring accuracy analysis
In order to further analyze the measuring accuracy of the
Prop, several compared experiments are also conducted for
measuring several planes with known heights between Zhang
and the Prop. In this experiment, the nine-step phase-shifting
PMP algorithm is used and the period of the binary fringe is
36 pixels. Table 1 shows the measuring results of six planes at
heights 3.00 mm, 5.50 mm, 10.00 mm, 20.00 mm and 25.80
mm, respectively. The h0 represents the known height of the
tested planes, havg denotes the average measuring height, the
MAE denotes the mean absolute error and the RMS denotes
the root of mean square error. It can be seen that the MAE is
less than 0.085 mm and the RMS is less than 0.047 mm in
Zhang’s method while the MAE is less than 0.071 mm and
the RMS is less than 0.038 mm in the Prop, so the Prop has
higher measuring accuracy and repeatability.
In order to show the Prop is flexible for its optional binary
fringe period, the five-step phase-shifting PMP with different
binary fringe periods of 18 pixels, 20 pixels, 22 pixels, 25 pix-
els, 30 pixels and 36 pixels are introduced to measuring sev-
eral planes with known heights, respectively. Table 2 shows
the corresponding results for measuring the plane with known
height of 5.50 mm. It can be seen that the MAE and RMS is
less than 0.080 and 0.041 mm, respectively; the measuring
accuracy of the Prop can be higher when smaller binary fringe
period is used.
In order to further verify the flexibility and the practicabil-
ity of the Prop at different binary fringe periods, the tortoise
model, as shown in Figure 9(a), is measured at different bin-
ary fringe periods of 20 pixels, 25 pixels and 30 pixels, respec-
tively. Figure 9(b) shows one of the five captured deformed
patterns at 20 pixels binary fringe period; Figure 9(c) shows
one of the five captured deformed patterns at 25 pixels binary
fringe period; Figure 9(d) shows one of the five captured
deformed patterns at 30 pixels binary fringe period. The cor-
responding reconstructed 3D shapes of the measured tortoise
model with the Prop at the above three binary fringe periods
are shown in Figures 9(e)–(g), respectively; it can be seen that
the surfaces of the measured tortoise model can be well recon-
structed with the Prop at different binary fringe periods. It
20.00 25.80
Prop Zhang Prop Zhang Prop
9.980 20.035 20.015 25.850 25.765
0.058 0.079 0.063 0.085 0.067
0.029 0.045 0.031 0.047 0.038
means that the Prop is flexible for its optional binary fringe
period.
In order to show the Prop is flexible for its optional phase-
shifting steps, the 3-step, 4-step, 5-step, 6-step, 7-step, 8-step,
9-step, 10-step, 11-step phase-shifting PMP with the same
binary fringe period of 25 pixels are introduced to measuring
several planes with known heights, respectively. Figure 10
shows the relationship between the MAE for measuring 5.50
mm plane and the different phase-shifting steps. It can be
seen that the measuring accuracy of the Prop can be higher
when more phase-shifting steps are used. But the room of the
measuring accuracy improvement is small after five-step
phase-shifting PMP and more than nine-step phase-shifting
PMP may be more time consuming. Compared with Zhang’s
method, as shown in Table 1, if the nine-step phase-shifting
PMP is replaced by the five-step phase-shifting PMP, the
measuring accuracy of the Prop also can be higher than that
of Zhang’s method and the time consuming will be less in the
process of capturing the deformed patterns.
Furthermore, in order to further verify the flexibility and
the practicability of the Prop at different phase-shifting steps,
the tortoise model as shown in Figure 9(a) is also measured at
different phase-shifting steps with the Prop, respectively.
Figure 11(a) shows one of the four captured deformed pat-
terns at four-step; Figure 11(b) shows one of the five captured
deformed patterns at five-step; Figure 11(c) shows one of the
six captured deformed patterns at six-step. The corresponding
reconstructed 3D shape results with the Prop at the above
three situations are shown in Figures 11(d)–(f), respectively.
It also can be seen that the surfaces of the tortoise model can
be well reconstructed with the Prop at different phase-shifting
steps. From Figure 9 and Figure 11, it can be seen that the
Prop is effective and flexible for measuring the 3D shapes of
the measured objects due to its optional binary fringe period
satisfied the sampling theorem and optional phase- shifting
steps. The suitable binary fringe period and phase-shifting
steps can be selected according to the practical 3D shape mea-
surement requirements.
In addition, several compared experiments among the
Lei’s method (Lei and Zhang, 2009), the Zhang’s method and
the Prop are conducted. Table 3 shows the compared measur-
ing result for a plane with height of 5.50 mm. It can be seen
that from the MAE and RMS that the Prop has higher mea-
suring accuracy. Although the Lei’s method has the same
advantages of optional fringe periods and optional phase-
shifting steps as the Prop, the defocusing projection must be
needed. And if the fringe period is less than 36 pixels or the
Fu et al. 9

Figure 9. Compared experiments at different fringe periods: (a) Measured tortoise model, (b) Captured deformed pattern in 20 pixels binary fringe
period, (c) Captured deformed pattern in 25 pixels binary fringe period, (d) Captured deformed pattern in 30 pixels binary fringe period, (e)–(g)
Corresponding reconstructed 3D shape results at above three conditions respectively.

Table 2. Measuring results with different binary fringe periods (mm).

P/pixels 18 20 22 25 30 36

h0 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.50

havg 5.510 5.512 5.489 5.475 5.526 5.470
MAE 0.042 0.045 0.048 0.063 0.073 0.080
RMS 0.023 0.024 0.025 0.030 0.034 0.041

phase-shifting steps are less than nine, the Zhang’s method is

helpless.
In order to verify the effectiveness for measuring the real-
time 3D shape measurement with the Prop, the experiment
for measuring a real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model, as shown in
Figure 8(a), is conducted. In this experiment, three-step
phase-shifting algorithm is used and the period of the binary
fringe is 18 pixels. While measuring, the DLP 4500 projects
three frames binary fringes with 1/3 period misalignment one
another onto the real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model separately
and sequentially, three deformed patterns in each group of
the real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model in different states are
captured by the HXC20 at 78fps, which is synchronized with
the DLP 4500. Figures 12(a)–(c) show three states (state 1,
state 2 and state 3) of the captured patterns. The correspond-
ing reconstructed 3D shapes at the above three states are
shown in Figures 12(d)–(f). It can be seen that the 3D shapes
of the measured real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model at different
states can be well reconstructed with the Prop. So, the Prop is
effective for measuring the real-time 3D shapes of the mea-
sured object.
Figure 10. Relationship between MAE and different phase-shifting
steps.
Conclusions
A 3D shape measurement method based on binary fringe
conventional projection is proposed. In the Prop, neither
defocusing projection is needed nor must the large-step
phase-shifting PMP be needed. The nearly unbroken sinusoi-
dal fringe pattern can be extracted efficiently from the cap-
tured fringe pattern just by filtering operation in spatial
frequency domain. While the encoded N (N ø 3) frames bin-
ary fringes misaligned 1/N period between each adjacent
fringes are conventionally projected onto the measured object
sequentially, the corresponding N frames nearly unbroken
sinusoidal deformed patterns extracted from the captured N
frames deformed patterns can be used to reconstruct the 3D
shape of the measured object with N-step PMP algorithm.
The experimental results show the feasibility and validity of
10 Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control 00(0)

Table 3. Compared measuring results with different periods and different steps (mm).

Method Lei Zhang Prop Lei Zhang Prop Lei Zhang Prop
N-step 5-step 5-step 5-step 8-step 8-step 8-step 9-step 9-step 9-step

P/pixels 20 20 20 25 25 25 36 36 36
havg 5.525 - 5.512 5.524 - 5.520 5.478 5.476 5.488
MAE 0.065 - 0.045 0.068 - 0.060 0.072 0.082 0.061
RMS 0.031 - 0.024 0.045 - 0.029 0.040 0.046 0.030

Figure 11. Compared experiments at different steps: (a) Captured deformed pattern at four-step, (b) Captured deformed pattern at five-step,
(c) Captured deformed pattern at six-step, (d)–(f) Corresponding reconstructed 3D shape results, respectively.

Figure 12. Experimental results for measuring real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model: (a)–(c) Captured deformed patterns in state 1, 2 and 3 from Video
1, (d)–(f) Corresponding reconstructed 3D shape results at above three states from Video 2.
Video 1 shows the captured deformed patterns of the real-time moving ‘‘heart’’ model in different states. Video 2 shows the corresponding
reconstructed 3D shapes.
Fu et al.
the Prop. The Prop can realize 3D shape measurement based
on binary fringe conventional projection in its true sense, it is
more flexible for its optional binary fringe period and
optional phase- shifting steps. Due to the binary feature of
the binary fringe, it can greatly improve the refresh rate of
DLP and will have potential application in the real-time or
dynamic 3D shape measurement.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflict of interests with
respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This research is funded by Special Grand National
Project of China under Grant No. 2009ZX02204-008.
ORCID iD
Yiping Cao https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0388-609X
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