OPTICAL TOPOGRAPHIC IMAGING

Methods and devices of studying a predefined portion of an object having a feature of interest are disclosed. The feature of interest defines a class of objects that includes the object. Light sources directly illuminate the object from different illumination directions. The light sources are maintained in a stable configuration relative to the object. For each illumination direction, an image is generated from light scattered from the object with a camera maintained in a stable configuration relative to the light sources. A methodology derived from machine learning for the class of objects is applied to filter the generated images are filtered for a characteristic consistent with the feature of interest. Surface gradients are determined from the filtered images and integrated to generate a topography of a surface of the object.