Quiroga Mellado, Juan AntonioServín Guirado, ManuelCuevas de la Rosa, Francisco Javier2023-06-202023-06-202002-080740-323210.1364/JOSAA.19.001524https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/58778© 2002 Optical Society of America. We are grateful for the financial support of this work given by the European Union under project INDUCE, Contract BRPR-CT97-0805, and by the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT), Mexico, under project PROSUVE, contract PR48/01-9858.The fringe orientation angle provides useful information for many fringe-pattern-processing techniques. From a single normalized fringe pattern (background suppressed and modulation normalized), the fringe orientation angle can be obtained by computing the irradiance gradient and performing a further aretangent computation. Because of the 180° ambiguity of the fringe direction, the orientation angle computed from the gradient of a single fringe pattern can be determined only modulo pi. Recently, several studies have shown that a reliable determination of the fringe orientation angle modulo 2π is a key point for a robust demodulation of the phase from a single fringe pattern. We present an algorithm for the computation of the modulo 2π fringe orientation angle by unwrapping the orientation angle obtained from the gradient computation with a regularized phase tracking method. Simulated as well as experimental results are presented.engjournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1364/JOSAA.19.001524http://www.opticsinfobase.org/open access535DemodulationÓptica (Física)2209.19 Óptica Física