ROBUST PHASE-UNWRAPPING METHOD FOR PHASE IMAGES WITH HIGH NOISE CONTENT

We present a robust method of phase unwrapping that was designed for u se on noisy phase images with arbitrary fringe patterns. The method pr oceeds by first identifying distinct regions between fringe boundaries in an image and then phase shifting the regions with respect to one a nother by multiples of 2 pi to unwrap the phase. Image pixels are segm ented between interfringe and fringe boundary areas by fitting a plane model using least squares to overlapping domains centered on all pixe ls. The method is tolerant of fringe gradient degradation caused by no ise, filtering artifacts, and finite instrumentation bandwidth. (C) 19 96 Optical Society Of America