Patent ID: 8520216

Claim:
A shape measuring apparatus comprising: a light source having a wideband spectrum; an optical system configured to guide the light from the light source to an object to be measured and a reference face, configured to combine the light reflected from the object to be measured and the light reflected from the reference face, and configured to generate an interfering light intensity distribution image indicating interfering light intensity that corresponds to each measurement position inside the measuring face of the object to be measured and changes depending on the difference between a first optical path length from the light source to the object to be measured and a second optical path length from the light source to the reference face; an imaging unit configured to image the interfering light intensity distribution image output from the optical system; an optical path length difference changing unit configured to change the optical path length difference between the first optical path length and the second optical path length; an image storing unit configured to sequentially store interfering light intensity distribution images that are imaged using the imaging unit and changed depending on the change in the optical path length difference; and an arithmetic processing unit configured to obtain the peak value of an interfering light intensity sequence indicating the change in the interfering light intensity due to the change in the optical path length difference at each measurement position of the interfering light intensity distribution images stored in the image storing unit, and configured to obtain the peak value as the position in the direction of the optical axis at each measurement position of the object to be measured, the arithmetic processing unit including: a plurality of signal generating unit configured to generate a direct-current signal and a plurality of periodic signals depending on the center frequency of the interfering light intensity sequence; a weighting unit configured to weight the respective signals output from the pluralities of signal generating unit; a first signal adding unit configured to add the signals output from the weighting unit with respect to the periodic signals, and configured to output the obtained signal as a detection signal; a second signal adding unit configured to add the signal output from the weighting unit with respect to the direct-current signal to the detection signal; a signal subtracting unit configured to subtract the output of the second signal adding unit from the interfering light intensity sequence, and configured to output an error signal; an adaptive signal processing block having an adaptive algorithm section for adjusting the weights of the weighting unit on the basis of the error signal; and a peak detection block configured to detect the peak position of the detection signal.