Image processing of real-world three-dimensional objects sensed with digital holography

Holography allows one to record the amplitude and phase of a wavefront reflected from a three-dimensional (3D) object, and in principle has advantages for non-contact, metrology applications. With digital holography, we use a digital camera, instead of a holographic plate and reconstruct either numerically through simulated propagation or optically using a spatial light modulator. Digital holograms are in a convenient form for numerical processing and digital transmission, and recently digital cameras with sufficient dynamic range and numbers of pixels have become available. This has raised interesting problems as to how the 3D data, within digital holograms call be exploited and analysed. We present novel processing techniques for the recording of wide-angle digital holograms and, for the purpose of object segmentation, the extraction of object, surface profile information from such digital holograms.