Optical topographic imaging

A device for studying a predefined portion of an object having a feature of interest and that is of a class of objects that each have a similar optical property, the device comprising:

• a plurality of light sources disposed to provide illumination of the object from different illumination directions, wherein the plurality of light sources is maintained in a stable configuration relative to the object;
• a camera disposed to receive light scattered from the object, wherein the camera is maintained in a stable configuration relative to the plurality of light sources;
• and
• a computational unit in communication with the plurality of light sources and with the camera, the computational unit having:
• instructions to activate the light sources to directly illuminate the object;
• instructions to operate the camera in concert with activation of the light sources to generate an images of the object for each of the illumination directions;
• and
• instructions to apply a methodology derived from machine learning for the class of objects to:
• filter the generated images for a characteristic consistent with the feature of interest;
• determine surface gradients for the object from the filtered images;
• and
• integrate the surface gradients to generate a topography of a surface of the predefined portion of the object.