An improved phase-coding method for absolute phase retrieval based on the path-following algorithm

Although the traditional phase-coding method for absolute phase retrieval possesses strong robustness, the method leads to unwrapping artifacts as a mass of codewords required. To solve this problem, a novel improved method is proposed in this paper. The incorrect points in the recovered phase via the traditional method are located using a computational framework, and the path-following algorithm is adopted as an aid to correct the unwrapping artifacts. The effectiveness of the proposed method is experimentally verified by an established measurement system. The reconstructed geometry of standard sphere has sufficient accuracy and the absolute phase retrieval of a complex star object has high quality.