Enhanced two-frequency phase-shifting method based on generalized phase-shifting algorithm

In this paper, we develop a novel dual-frequency pattern which not only releases the restriction of conventional two-frequency phase-shifting algorithm that at least six fringe patterns are needed, but reduces the noise impact by decreasing the frequency ratio between the high- and low-components. To decrease the number of necessary patterns to five, a novel composite dual-frequency pattern scheme combining together a high- with a low-frequency pattern is employed. To make the algorithm less sensitivity to noise, the low-frequency component is with more than one period fringes, which is relatively prone to recover the continuous result by simple spatial phase unwrapping approach. Besides, the restriction of special phase shifts between two-frequency components in conventional methods is released by the generalized phase-shifting algorithm. Simulations and experiments are conducted to demonstrate that in addition to maintaining the minimum number of patterns, the proposed method reveals higher accuracy of phase retrieval.