Shape measurements by fringe projection methods require high-quality sinusoidal fringes. We present a sinusoidal fringe generation technique that utilizes slightly defocused binary fringe projection. The proposed method is a spatial version of the well-known pulse-width modulation (PWM) technique of electrical engineering. PWM is easy to implement using off-the-shelf projectors, and it allows us to overcome the gamma problem (i.e., the nonlinear projector response) in the output light intensity. We will demonstrate that, with a small defocusing level--lower than with other techniques proposed in the literature--a high-quality sinusoidal pattern is obtained. Validation experiments using a commercial video projector are presented.

Limited depth-of-focus is a problem in many fields of optics, e.g., microscopy and macro-photography. We propose a new physically based method with a space variant point spread function (PSF) to accomplish all-in-focus reconstruction (image fusion) from a multi-focus image sequence in order to extend the depth-of-field. The proposed method works well under strong defocus conditions for color image stacks of arbitrary length. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art image fusion algorithms for strong defocus on both synthetic as well as real data images.

Three-dimensional profiling by sinusoidal fringe projection using PSI-algorithms are distorted by the nonlinear response of digital cameras and commercial video projectors. To solve the problem, we present a fringe generation technique that consists of projecting and acquiring a temporal sequence of strictly binary color patterns, whose (adequately weighted) average leads to sinusoidal fringe patterns with the required number of bits, which allows for a reliable three-dimensional profile using a PSI-algorithm. Validation experiments are presented.

Phase objects can be characterized using well-known methods such as shear interferometry and deflectometry, which provide information on the partial derivatives of the phase. It is often believed that for phase retrieval it is strictly necessary to have knowledge of two partial derivatives in orthogonal directions. In the praxis, this implies that the measurements have to be performed along two dimensions, which often requires a rotation of the object or rotation of the shear direction. This is time consuming and errors can be easily generated from the process of rotation, especially for image registration in the axial direction. In the present Letter, we will demonstrate that only one partial derivative often suffices to recover the phase, and we will discuss under which conditions that is possible. Simulations and validation experiments are presented.

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