Patent ID: 8583407

Claim:
A method of modeling a surface of an object using ultrasonic transducers mounted on the surface, the method comprising the steps of: providing a model of the surface, the model comprising a set of surface points indicative of a height of the surface, transmitting pulsed waves from a first transducer to one or more second transducers, the first transducer and each one of the one or more second transducers defining a respective path along the surface, measuring travel times of the pulsed waves along each path, calculating travel times based on the model of the surface, adjusting the model of the surface in response to a discrepancy between a measured travel time and a calculated travel time for a path along the surface, and repeating the steps of transmitting, measuring, calculating and adjusting until any discrepancies between the measured travel time and the calculated travel time for paths along the surface are smaller than a predetermined threshold, wherein the step of calculating travel times comprises a sub-step of interpolating between points of the set of surface points to obtain an expanded set of surface points, the travel times being calculated using the expanded set.