Patent ID: RE39978

Claim:
A method for high speed, scanning phase measuring of an object at a vision station to develop physical information associated with the object, the method comprising the steps of: projecting a pattern of imagable electromagnetic radiation with at least one projector; moving the object relative to the at least one projector at a substantially constant velocity at the vision station so as to scan the projected pattern of electromagnetic radiation across a surface of the object to generate an imagable electromagnetic radiation signal; receiving the imagable electromagnetic radiation signal from the surface of the object with a detector having a plurality of separate detector elements which are substantially uniformly spaced; maintaining the at least one projector and the pattern of imagable electromagnetic radiation and the detector in a substantially fixed relation to each other; measuring an amount of radiant energy in the received electromagnetic radiation signal with the detector wherein each of the detector elements produce an image having a different phase of the same scanned surface based on the measurement; and computing phase values and amplitude values for the different phases from the multiple images.