Three-dimensional (3D) shape profiling is an important and practical problem that is being widely studied in the academia and applied in industrial field. In the present work we propose a 3D scanning technique based on the combination of orthogonal fringe projection. It allows us to compute depth field gradient maps in a fast and efficient manner by measuring the local bending of the projected fringes. In the present work we extend the ideas presented in our previous work (di Martino et al. (2014) [1]), obtaining a more general analytical description and evaluating in-depth the different parameters and steps involved in the proposed approach. In addition, extensive validation experiments are presented which show the potential and limitations of the proposed framework. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.