Evaluation of fringe projection as a method to provide information about horticultural product surfaces

Fringe projection is a rapid, non-destructive, non-contact technique used to generate 3D topographical surface information. Common applications of this technique include the capture of skin characteristic data in medical and cosmetic fields, and use as a tool to reverse engineer complex objects. This work will introduce the technique as applied to assessment of fruit surfaces. A Primos Lite (GFM, Teltow, Germany) system was used to capture surface topography of 20×13 mm surface areas, at x-y resolution of 27 µm and depth resolution of 1.7 µm. Images were processed to enable description of the surfaces and specific epidermal features (e.g., lenticels) located on them. This paper reviews the findings of this preliminary work and provides suggestions as to how application of this high resolution surface topography technique may be useful in the assessment of horticultural product quality in industry, or as a scientific tool.