Optical displacement meter

An optical displacement meter using an optical cutting method, which measures a profile of a measurement object, the meter comprising:

• a light projecting unit that irradiates the measurement object with slit light which spreads in a first direction or spot light scanned in the first direction;
• a light receiving unit that includes a plurality of pixels arranged in the first direction and a second direction intersecting with the first direction, receives reflected light from each position of the measurement object in the first direction, and outputs a light receiving amount distribution;
• a peak detection unit that detects one or a plurality of peak candidate positions of light receiving amounts in the second direction for each pixel column based on a plurality of the light receiving amount distributions respectively output from a plurality of the pixel columns arranged in the first direction;
• and
• a profile generation unit that selects a peak position to be adopted to the profile based on a relative positional relationship with a peak position of another pixel column adjacent to the pixel column from the peak candidate positions detected by the peak detection unit for each pixel column, and generates profile data indicating the profile based on the selected peak position;
• and further comprising:
• a switching unit that switches an operation mode of the profile generation unit between a first operation mode and a second operation mode,
• wherein, in the first operation mode, when the plurality of peak candidate positions in the light receiving amount distribution corresponding to any pixel column is detected by the peak detection unit, the profile generation unit selects the peak position to be adopted in the profile from the plurality of peak candidate positions based on continuity between at least the peak candidate position in the light receiving amount distribution corresponding to a pixel column adjacent to the pixel column in the first direction and the plurality of detected peak candidate positions, and
• in the second operation mode, when the plurality of peak candidate positions is detected in the light receiving amount distribution corresponding to any pixel column by the peak detection unit, the profile generation unit selects the peak position to be adopted to the profile from the plurality of peak candidate positions based on a preset condition.

An optical displacement meter using an optical cutting method, which measures a profile of a measurement object, the meter comprising:

• a light projecting unit that irradiates the measurement object with slit light which spreads in a first direction or spot light scanned in the first direction;
• a light receiving unit that includes a plurality of pixels arranged in the first direction and a second direction intersecting with the first direction, receives reflected light from each position of the measurement object in the first direction, and outputs a light receiving amount distribution;
• a peak detection unit that detects one or a plurality of peak candidate positions of light receiving amounts in the second direction for each pixel column based on a plurality of the light receiving amount distributions respectively output from a plurality of the pixel columns arranged in the first direction;
• and
• a profile generation unit that selects a peak position to be adopted to the profile based on a relative positional relationship with a peak position of another pixel column adjacent to the pixel column from the peak candidate positions detected by the peak detection unit for each pixel column, and generates profile data indicating the profile based on the selected peak position;
• and further comprising:
• a cluster generation unit that generates a plurality of clusters each including one or more peak candidate positions from the plurality of peak candidate positions in the plurality of light receiving amount distributions detected by the peak detection unit,
• wherein each cluster includes one or more peak candidate positions selected such that a distance between the peak candidate positions adjacent to each other in the first direction is equal to or less than a predetermined value, and
• the profile generation unit determines the relative positional relationship based on the number of the peak candidate positions included in each cluster generated by the cluster generation unit.