Analysis and identification of phase error in phase measuring profilometry

Both the analysis of phase errors which occur at the abrupt discontinuities in phase measuring profilometry (PMP) and the identification method are presented in this paper. The sampling effect of CCD will cause a dilution of accuracy in PMP, especially at abrupt discontinuities on the object surface. The existing methods cannot efficiently identify the abrupt discontinuities. We analyze the relationship between the phase, the height and the equivalent wavelength. By viewing the phase as the argument of a vector we find out that CCD sampling introduces errors into the measurement and the phase is nonlinear to the equivalent wavelength at the abrupt discontinuities. Therefore temporal phase unwrapping (TPU) is introduced into the measurement to identify the abrupt discontinuities. Computer simulations and practical experiment validate the feasibility of this method. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America