This paper presents a comprehensive survey of coded structured light techniques, updating the review in Ref. [4] and proposing a new, consistent and definitive classification. The paper focuses on the different coding strategies used in the literature and reproduces the experimental results of several techniques to evaluate and compare their accuracy and analyze their applicability. The article is structured as follows: first, the classification is presented in Section 2. Second, in Section 3, techniques based on projecting multiple patterns are explained. In Section 4, techniques exploiting the spatial neighbourhood paradigm are presented. Next, in Section 5, coding strategies using direct codification are also explained. In Section 6, the experimental results obtained with a set of implemented techniques are presented. Finally, in Section 7, the conclusion contains a discussion about the advantages and drawbacks of every subgroup of techniques. In addition, general guidelines for choosing the most suitable technique (given the specifications of an application) are proposed. A coded structured light system is based on the projection of a single pattern or a set of patterns onto the measuring scene which is then viewed by a single camera or a set of cameras. The patterns are specially designed so that codewords are assigned to a set of pixels. Every coded pixel has its own codeword, so there is a direct mapping from the codewords to the corresponding coordinates of the pixel in the pattern. The codewords are simply numbers, which are mapped in the pattern by using grey levels, colour or geometrical representations. The larger the number of points that must be coded, the larger the codewords are and, therefore, the mapping of such codewords to a pattern is more difficult. The aim of this work is to review the available strategies used to represent such codewords. Pattern projection techniques differ in the way in which every point in the pattern is identified, i.e. what kind of codeword is used, and whether it encodes a single axis or two spatial axis. In reality, it is only necessary to encode a single axis, since a 3D point can be obtained by intersecting two lines (i.e. when both pattern axis are coded) or intersecting one line (the one which contains a pixel of the camera image) with a plane (i.e. when a single pattern axis is coded). Table 1 shows pattern projection techniques classified according to their coding strategy: time-multiplexing, neighbourhood codification and direct codification. The seven columns on the right of the table indicate whether or not a given pattern is suitable for measuring moving objects, the colour depth used and whether repeated codewords appear (periodic codification) or not (absolute codification). Time-multiplexing techniques generate the codewords by projecting a sequence of patterns along time, so the structure of every pattern can be very simple. Furthermore, in spite of increasing the pattern complexity, neighbourhood codification represents the codewords inThis paper presents a comprehensive survey of coded structured light techniques, updating the review in Ref. [4] and proposing a new, consistent and definitive classification. The paper focuses on the different coding strategies used in the literature and reproduces the experimental results of several techniques to evaluate and compare their accuracy and analyze their applicability. The article is structured as follows: first, the classification is presented in Section 2. Second, in Section 3, techniques based on projecting multiple patterns are explained. In Section 4, techniques exploiting the spatial neighbourhood paradigm are presented. Next, in Section 5, coding strategies using direct codification are also explained. In Section 6, the experimental results obtained with a set of implemented techniques are presented. Finally, in Section 7, the conclusion contains a discussion about the advantages and drawbacks of every subgroup of techniques. In addition, general guidelines for choosing the most suitable technique (given the specifications of an application) are proposed. A coded structured light system is based on the projection of a single pattern or a set of patterns onto the measuring scene which is then viewed by a single camera or a set of cameras. The patterns are specially designed so that codewords are assigned to a set of pixels. Every coded pixel has its own codeword, so there is a direct mapping from the codewords to the corresponding coordinates of the pixel in the pattern. The codewords are simply numbers, which are mapped in the pattern by using grey levels, colour or geometrical representations. The larger the number of points that must be coded, the larger the codewords are and, therefore, the mapping of such codewords to a pattern is more difficult. The aim of this work is to review the available strategies used to represent such codewords. Pattern projection techniques differ in the way in which every point in the pattern is identified, i.e. what kind of codeword is used, and whether it encodes a single axis or two spatial axis. In reality, it is only necessary to encode a single axis, since a 3D point can be obtained by intersecting two lines (i.e. when both pattern axis are coded) or intersecting one line (the one which contains a pixel of the camera image) with a plane (i.e. when a single pattern axis is coded). Table 1 shows pattern projection techniques classified according to their coding strategy: time-multiplexing, neighbourhood codification and direct codification. The seven columns on the right of the table indicate whether or not a given pattern is suitable for measuring moving objects, the colour depth used and whether repeated codewords appear (periodic codification) or not (absolute codification). Time-multiplexing techniques generate the codewords by projecting a sequence of patterns along time, so the structure of every pattern can be very simple. Furthermore, in spite of increasing the pattern complexity, neighbourhood codification represents the codewords in