Phase-evaluation methods in whole-field optical measurement techniques

Many optical measurement techniques provide fringe patterns as their result s. The decodification processes that employ one or several fringe patterns to automatically retrieve the phase are generally designated as phase-evalu ation methods. In this work, an overview of these methods will be schematic ally presented. Their particular performances will be compared, stressing t heir main advantages and drawbacks. An important group of these methods emp loys the well-known phase-shifting algorithms as a tool for calculating the phase. In the general form of these algorithms, the principal value of the optical phase is computed by an inverse trigonometric function whose argum ent is a combination of phase-shifted intensity values, provided by the mod ulation of one or several fringe patterns. These algorithms will be also st udied in the general context of the phase-evaluation methods.