An algorithm for extracting the phase of the fringe patterns with its applications to three-dimensional imaging through FPGA based implementation

Real-time three-dimensional imaging is widely used in the different areas such as medical, industrial and engineering applications. One of the most effective non-contact measurement techniques includes structured light patterns projected on the surface of object to obtain its three-dimensional depth. The fringe pattern is now known as the traditional structured light one. In most common phase extracting algorithms except the frequency estimation, additional unwrapping algorithm is needed to extract the phase. Having considered the problems associated with the phase unwrapping of the fringe pattern mentioned in the literatures, a novel algorithm is proposed to outperform the characteristics of conventional methods such as the frequency estimation and the Itoh that can simultaneously be utilized. The simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm extracts image phase of the fringe patterns in line with the realistic patterns with high quality through FPGA based implementation to reduce the processing time.