Patent ID: 7227648

Claim:
A method for a non-contact examination of an object, comprising the steps of: positioning a housing containing a plurality of light sources therein with a lighting aperture in said housing for permitting light from said plurality of light sources to exit said housing toward an object to be examined, so that said plurality of light sources are capable of illuminating the object; successively illuminating a surface segment of the object to be examined by positioning the lighting aperture of said housing at several different angles of incidence; gathering light radiating from the surface segment of the object at each of said several different angles of incidence by at least one image sensor; producing at least one first image data set for each of said several different angles of incidence for each of said at least one image sensor for the surface segment of the object; deriving shape characteristics from said at least one first image data set; deriving shape-independent characteristics from at least one second image data set, so that with said second image data set, said at least one first image set is reduced by misleading impacts of said shape-independent characteristics before said shape characteristics from said at least one first image set are derived, the object to be examined being kept stationary and said housing being movable relative to the surface segment of the object.