title: Comment on "Phase-shift extraction and wave-front reconstruction in phase-shifting interferometry with arbitrary phase steps".
abstract: We comment on the recent Letter by Cai et al. [Opt. Lett. 28, 1808 (2003)] in which an approach to phase-shifting interferometry with arbitrary phase steps was proposed. Cai et al. based their method of phase shifting on the idea that the intensities of the reference and object beams can be measured previously, which actually makes the whole posterior phase-shifting procedure absolutely unnecessary. Their method is also based on the statement that the phase of the Fresnel diffraction pattern of a test object if generally a spatially random distribution, which in most situations is wrong.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ingeniería, J. Herrera y Reissig 565, 13000 Montevideo, Uruguay. jferrari@fing.edu.uy
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Garbusi