High-speed fringe analysis by using stair-shaped virtual grating demodulation

This article describes a novel fringe analysis technique using stair-shaped virtual grating demodulation algorithm for extracting the phase information from a single fringe pattern. In contrast to the Fourier transform technique and quadrature multiplicative moire method, the new method processes a fringe pattern in the integer signal domain instead of the frequency domain and real-signal domain. The spatial carrier of fringe image is not limited to any particular frequency as long as it fulfills the sampling theorem. The errors analysis of this technique is conducted by computer simulation and experiments.     

一种基于傅里叶变换的分析载波条纹的新方法

针对传统傅里叶变换法处理光载波干涉条纹图时会有边缘效应产生的问题,提出了一种基于傅里叶变换法的外推延拓方法,并从理论上进行了数学推导。为了验证这种方法的正确性,分别对一维数字信号和二维空间载波条纹图进行了数值模拟,进一步分析了误差产生的原因,并与传统的傅里叶变换法对比。结果表明该法可以有效抑制传统傅里叶变换法处理光载波干涉条纹图时边缘效应所造成的较大误差,在基于空间域相位调制技术的波面干涉测量中,对空间载波条纹图进行处理,可以使相位的计算精度达到3.3 mrad。     

A numerical spatial carrier for single fringe pattern analysis algorithm

Hilbert transform and continuous wavelet transform are combined to form an algorithm for the analysis of a single fringe pattern with open or closed fringes. Only one recorded fringe pattern is needed to extract the phase information. A second π/2 phase shifted fringe pattern should first be generated from the other using Hilbert transform to superpose numerically the spatial carrier. Several phase extraction techniques are conceived to demodulate fringe patterns. In this paper, the wavelet technique is used to obtain the required phase distribution. The algorithm offers an advantage that it is appropriate when the spatial carrier is impossible to be added experimentally. Finally, a simulation was carried out to validate the algorithm, giving good results.     

Analysis on fringe pattern demodulation by use of 2-D CWT

We discuss the wavelet transform profilometry based on the continuous wavelet transform technique as viewed from frequency analysis. We deduce the expression of one-dimensional (1-D) and two-dimensional (2-D) wavelet transform in frequency domain and analyze their characteristics in the application of demodulating the fringe patterns. We also compare 1-D CWT and 2-D CWT in demodulating the oblique fringe patterns with dual carrier frequency components. When oblique fringe patterns are processed, the direction normal to the grating line and x axis or y axis is not identical. By 1-D CWT, in which wavelet transform is carried out row by row, we cannot obtain the most similarity between local signal and the wavelet functions with different dilation values. While a fan 2-D continuous wavelet transformation can deal with the fringe pattern as a 2-D unit as well as has multi-directions, its advantage is that it can be used to exact the information in the spatial direction. However, its spatial localization ability is not very good, which leads that it is not suitable for demodulating the fringe patterns with high phase variation. Computer simulations and experiments have verified our analysis.     

The separation of out-of-plane displacement from in-plane components by fringe carrier method based on large image-shearing ESPI

A fringe carrier method for separating out-of-plane displacement from in-plane components based on large image-shearing electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) is presented. If the test object is respectively illuminated by two expanded symmetric illuminations in large image-shearing ESPI, two interferometers are formed. Carrier fringe patterns can be introduced by tilting reference surface a small angle. The carrier fringe patterns are demodulated after deformation of the object. Two phase maps, which include out-of-plane and in-plane displacement, can be obtained by using Fourier transform. Then out-of-plane displacement can be easily separated from in-plane displacement by simple operation between two unwrapped phase distributions. The principle of spatial carrier frequency modulation in large image-shearing ESPI is discussed. A typical three-point-bending experiment is completed. Experimental results are offered. The results show that the method offers high visibility of carrier fringes. And the system presented does not need a special beam as a reference light and has simple optical setup.     

Orthogonal projection technique for resolution enhancement of the Fourier transform fringe analysis method

The spatial resolution of the phase map in the Fourier transform fringe analysis method is determined by the size of the filter’s window in frequency domain. This article reports a straightforward technique to improve the method’s resolution by a factor of nearly two. The technique requires capturing a second image with a fringe pattern orthogonal to the first one, therefore using the information from both patterns to eliminate the central component in frequency space. The resulting spectrum supports double sized filter windows for removal of the carrier frequency without leaking into adjacent orders. The overall spatial resolution of the method is thus increased. In the following, the Fourier fringe analysis method is briefly reviewed, the new technique is described and analyzed and the experimental results are shown and discussed.     

Single-shot full-field interferometric polarimeter with an integrated calibration scheme

A simple interferometric polarimeter with an integrated calibration scheme is proposed for accurate and fast mapping of the state of polarization (SOP). Conventional single-shot polarimeters that detect the amplitude and phase of orthogonally polarized field components by interferometry using Fourier fringe analysis suffers from errors caused by the imperfect reference beam and ambiguity in the spatial carrier frequency in the fringe pattern. In the proposed system, the integrated calibration scheme eliminates those error sources and enables accurate measurement of SOP without prior knowledge of the reference beam and the spatial carrier frequency.     

Optical phase distribution evaluation by using an S-transform

An experimental study of the use of an S-transform to evaluate the phase distribution from a two-dimensional fringe pattern by introducing the carrier frequencies in two spatial directions, x and y, is presented. The phase distribution is extracted from the optical fringe pattern by using an S-transform gradient and S-transform phase methods. The experimental result for the Fourier transform profilometry algorithm is compared with the results of the S-transform analysis.     

干涉仪自适应抗振的空间移相术

根据时域移相算法的概念,提出了一种空间移相术,它能够检测因外界振动导致条纹抖动而引起的干涉图样的空间相位变化.运用这种技术在TwymanGreen移相式干涉仪中建立了一套自适应抗振系统,它可以实时测量振动引起的相位变化大小,并通过反馈器件PZT实时校正干涉条纹的相位,使得干涉条纹稳定以保证光学测量的正常进行,与此同时PZT还作为移相器件.     

大剪切电子散斑干涉的载频调制与位移场测量

将电子散斑干涉场的载波调制引入到大剪切电子散斑干涉中,通过对参考物的微小偏转引入载波条纹;利用傅里叶变换法,解调出了变形场的相位,从而实现了物体变形场的精确测量。讨论了大剪切载频的调制机理,理论分析表明,调制条纹的空间频率与参考面偏转的角度成正比;因此,控制参考面的偏转角度可实现不同位移量系统的调制。利用中心加载周边固定圆盘进行了典型实验,实验结果证明在大剪切电子散斑干涉技术中可以通过参考面的旋转高质量地实现电子散斑干涉条纹的调制,求解位移场。该系统具有系统简单,不需要专门引入参考光,条纹质量好等优点。该技术可扩展电子散斑干涉的应用范围,有一定的实际应用价值。     

A digital spatial carrier for wavelet phase extraction

In this paper, we present a new method to digitally add a high-frequency spatial carrier in order to use the wavelet phase extraction algorithm, which leads directly to the phase without the unwrapping process. The method needs a fringe pattern and its π/2 shifted version. The application is performed with two shifted fringe patterns obtained from the phase shifting images of the thermomechanical study of an MOS power transistor. A comparison with the phase shifting results is made.     

Multi-STFT for adaptive SCPS phase determination

This paper presents a fast and reliable approach for phase modulo 2π-calculation from a single fringe pattern. It calculates correct phase values even for very complex and variable shape gradients based on a locally variable fringe period determined for the entire image. In the paper, a new two-step method for wrapped phase calculation is proposed. It is performed through the use of a method based on a multiple local fast Fourier transform for estimation of a local fringes period map and a 5-point spatial carrier phase shifting (SCPS) formula for phase modulo 2π-calculation. The described approach is verified by a correct demodulation of a real fringe pattern taken by a 3D-shape measurement system.     

Demodulation of a single interferogram based on continuous wavelet transform and phase derivative

A novel method based on continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and guidance of phase derivative is developed to measure the phase of a single fringe pattern which contains closed fringes. Wrapped phase values are retrieved by ridge extraction algorithms based on CWT which has the capability of better noise reduction and thus increases the resolution of measurement significantly. To further reduce the noise, the scales detected by maximum ridge algorithm are filtered iteratively before retrieval of wrapped phase. The proposed method also identifies any ambiguous point in a non-monotonous fringe pattern by directly tracking an inflexion point from an unwrapped phase map without the use of a carrier. The algorithm developed is validated by computer simulation and experimental results. Based on micro interferometry the experimental results for both static and dynamic deformations of a micro structure demonstrate that the proposed method is an effective tool for the analysis of closed fringe patterns and subsequent deformation measurement. However, the proposed technique is limited to measurement of surface which is relatively smooth compared to the mean wavelength of the light source. In addition, prior knowledge of the sign of surface slope is required in cases where a spatial carrier is not available or adaptable.     

A fringe carrier technique for unambiguous determination of fringe orders in shearography

Shearography is an interferometric method which measures displacement derivatives. This paper presents a technique which eliminates the ambiguity in shearographic fringe interpretation. The technique is based on generating a carrier fringe pattern. Introduction of the carrier fringes results in the formation of a fringe pattern which has monotonically increasing fringe orders, thus allowing fringe orders to be determined in a straightforward manner and without ambiguity. The phase change due to deformation alone is then obtained by simply subtracting the known undeformed carrier fringe orders from the deformed carrier fringe orders. Elimination of fringe ambiguity has paved a way for automatic data acquisition in shearography.     

On window size selection in the windowed Fourier ridges algorithm

The windowed Fourier ridges (WFR) algorithm can be used to extract the frequency and phase information from an exponential or carrier fringe pattern. The selection of the window size for this algorithm is investigated in this paper. For exponential phase fringe patterns, the window size does not need to be adjusted according to the signal frequency. Hence the scaling strategy of the wavelet transform is not necessary. Instead, the window size should be selected according to the balance between the linear phase approximation error and the noise level. For carrier fringe patterns, the influence of the conjugate component should also be considered. However it can be ignored when the lowest frequency of the fringe pattern is higher than 1.5/σ (σ is used to represent the window size).     

Robust wrapping-free phase retrieval method based on weighted least squares method

Phase unwrapping is one of the most challenging processes in many profilometry techniques. To sidestep the phase unwrapping process, Perciante et al. (2015) proposed a wrapping-free method to retrieve the phase based on the direct integration of the spatial derivatives of the fringe patterns. However, this method is only applicable to objects with phase continuity, so it may fail to handle fringe patterns containing complicated singularities such as noise, shadows, shears and surface discontinuities. In the light of this problems, a robust wrapping-free phase retrieval method is proposed that is based on the combined use of Perciante's method and the weighted least squares method. Two partial derivatives of the desired phase are obtained from the fringe patterns, while the carrier is eliminated using the direct phase difference method. The phase singularities are determined using a derivative variance correlation map (DVCM), and the weighting coefficient is obtained from the binary mask of the reverse DVCM. Simulations and experiments are conducted to prove the validity of the proposed method. The results are analyzed and compared with those of Perciante's method demonstrating that in addition to maintaining the advantage of sidestepping the phase unwrapping process, the proposed method is available for measuring objects with some types of singularities sources.     

Discuss the measuring range of dual-frequency wavelet transform profilometry

We discuss the structure condition and sampling condition of wavelet transform profilometry (WTP) based on dual-frequency fringe pattern in this work. In the mentioned method a grating fringe with dual-frequency components is projected onto an object. And two wavelet ridge lines can be extracted by means of wavelet analysis, from which we can calculate two groups of wrapped phase information. Afterwards the retrieved phase with higher precision can be obtained through phase unwrapping process. However, it should be noted that the spectral aliasing of the deformed fringe pattern must be avoided in order to restore the correct phase information. And the two fringe carrier frequencies have to obey some rules as well. In this paper, the structure condition and sampling condition of the proposed method is deduced from the point of view of frequency analysis. It is proven that there would be no frequency overlapping in the deformed fringe pattern only when both of the two conditions mentioned previously are fulfilled. The results of computer simulations and experiments verify the validity of our theory.     

Conversion from phase map to coordinate: Comparison among spatial carrier, Fourier transform, and phase shifting methods

For full-field phase measurement methods, many algorithms have been developed to extract a phase map from fringe image(s). Both phase wrapping and unwrapping algorithms have been extensively investigated by many researchers, but few papers can be found on how to calculate the coordinates of surface points from a phase map. This paper focuses on algorithms that show how a phase map can be used to calculate coordinates. Details are given for single image methods such as Fourier transform, spatial carrier methods, and multiple image methods like traditional phase-shifting methods. Algorithms that can be used to convert a phase map to coordinates and some issues related to these conversion algorithms are discussed. An artifact is measured using these phase measurement methods. The results show that using the correct algorithm to convert a phase map to coordinates is a key to obtaining accurate measurement results.     

Application of the holographic carrier fringe and FFT technique for deformation measurement

This paper describes a holographic system based on the use of fibre optics and automatic spatial carrier fringe pattern analysis. Carrier fringes are generated by simply translating the object beam between two exposures. Single-mode optical fibres are used to transfer both the object and reference beams. The fast Fourier transform method is used to process the interferograms: it extracts phase from fringe patterns resulting from the interference of tilted wavefronts. The method is illustrated by measuring the deformation of an arbitrarily clamped, uniformly loaded circular plate. The results are given for the perspective plot of the out-of-plane deformation field, the maps of wrapped and unwrapped phase, and a contour map of the unwrapped phase.     

Comment on "Fringe projection profilometry with nonparallel illumination: a least-squares approach"

We comment on the recent Letter by Chen and Quan [Opt. Lett.30, 2101 (2005)] in which a least-squares approach was proposed to cope with the nonparallel illumination in fringe projection profilometry. It is noted that the previous mathematical derivations of the fringe pitch and carrier phase functions on the reference plane were incorrect. In addition, we suggest that the variation of carrier phase along the vertical direction should be considered.