Temporal evaluation of fringe patterns with spatial carrier with an improved asynchronous phase demodulation algorithm

A method for temporal evaluation of fringe patterns with a spatial carrier is presented. The proposed technique consists in the recording of the temporal irradiance fluctuations obtained when a linear variation of the set-up sensitivity is introduced. In this way, the use of a spatial carrier introduces a linear temporal carrier frequency. This allows the use of fast and low time consuming temporal asynchronous demodulation algorithms, similar to those employed in spatial phase shifting techniques. An existing five-step algorithm has been corrected for asynchronous demodulation. It is shown that it is possible to fix the sensitivity variation in such a way that the algorithm presents optimum behaviour against noise and nonlinearities presented by the temporal irradiance signal. Finally, the technique has been applied to measure the shape of an object, using a fringe projection set-up.