Patent ID: 8659653

Claim:
A device for evaluating an appearance of a surface of a tire comprising: a color linear camera comprising means for separating a light beam, reflected by the surface of said tire and entering the color linear camera, into at least two different base colors of given wavelengths, so as to direct the reflected light beam to as many sensors as the at least two base colors, wherein said sensors are respectively configured to provide a basic image in gray level for each of the at least two base colors; a plurality of lighting means corresponding in number to said at least two base colors, each of said plurality of lighting means having its light oriented at an incident angle to the surface to be evaluated that is different from an incident angle of all other of the plurality of lighting means, and each said lighting means emitting a monochromatic light that differs in color from that of the other lighting means, wherein a wavelength of such color corresponds substantially to a maximum sensitivity of the sensor of the color linear camera configured to receive light of said color from the reflected light beam; and calculating means using a triangulation algorithm for calculating, from data of at least one basic image in gray level originating from a particular one of said sensors and a value of an incident angle formed by the lighting means emitting the light having the wavelength corresponding to the maximum sensitivity of the particular sensor, coordinates of pixels corresponding to relief elements in said surface.