Patent ID: 7755772

Claim:
A tire shape measuring system for capturing an image of a line of light emitted to a surface of a relatively rotating tire and measuring the shape of the tire surface by detecting the shape using a light-section method on the basis of the captured image, comprising: line light emitting means for forming a plurality of separate light section lines on the tire surface by emitting a plurality of lines of light in a direction different from a direction in which the height of the tire surface is detected, each of the light section lines extending in a second direction perpendicular to a first direction representing a moving direction of the tire surface, areas occupied by the light section lines being shifted with respect to each other in the second direction; image capturing means for capturing images of the separate light section lines formed on the tire surface in directions in which chief rays of the line light rays are specularly reflected by the tire surface; light section line coordinate detecting means for individually detecting the coordinates of the light section lines representing the coordinates of the images of the light section lines from images of independent image processing target areas pre-defined for the separate light section lines in a coordinate system of a captured image captured by the image capturing means for each of a plurality of captured images captured by the image capturing means in accordance with a predetermined amount of rotational movement; and surface shape calculating means for calculating a distribution of the surface height of the tire in the first direction on the basis of the plurality of coordinates of the light section lines detected by the light section line coordinate detecting means.