Fast phase recovery from a single closed-fringe pattern

A new framework for phase recovery from a single fringe pattern with closed fringes is proposed. Our algorithm constructs an unwrapped phase from previously computed phases with a simple open-fringe-analysis algorithm, twice applied for analyzing horizontal and vertical oriented fringes, respectively. That reduces the closed-fringe-analysis problem to that of choosing the better phase between the two oriented computed phases and then of estimating the local sign. By propagating the phase sign [and a tilewise constant (DC) term] by regions [here named tiles] instead of a pixelwise phase propagation, our analysis of closed-fringe patterns becomes more robust and faster. Additionally, we propose a multigrid refinement for improving the final computed phase. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.