Patent ID: 6507036
Filing Date: 2003-01-14
Classification: G01B

Abstract:
A method of determining the color and profile of a target surface, comprising the steps of:scanning the target surface with an incident light beam containing a plurality of component wavelengths; forming a beam of light reflected from said target surface; passing said reflected beam through a wavelength separator to form one or more separate sub-beams corresponding to the component wavelength or wavelengths of the reflected beam; directing said one or more sub-beams onto a sensor array located downstream of said wavelength separator; detecting the positions of said one or more sub-beams on said sensor array as said incident beam moves over the target surface; directing at least a portion of the reflected beam onto wavelength sensitive photodetector means separate from said sensor array to obtain data representative of the approximate wavelength composition of said reflected beam; determining the color and profile of the target surface from the relative positions and shapes of peaks produced by said one or more sub-beams on said sensor array; and using said data representative of the approximate wavelength composition to determine the wavelength identity of said one or more peaks when ambiguities in the wavelength identity of said peaks arise due to the absence of one or more said component wavelengths in the reflected beam.