The invention relates to a method for analyzing properties of a surface by taking
an image scene with a camera, wherein at least two images are taken with an illumination
with directed and/or diffused light, wherein the image information of the single
images is converted into digital signals, and subsequently a three-dimensional
image is determined from the digital signals in computer-aided manner. Further,
the image relates to an image-taking device for performing this method, comprising
a video camera and a lighting appliance being associated with the video camera,
the lighting appliance comprising a first lighting system generating diffused light
and a second lighting system generating directed light, and a controller through
which the first and the second lighting systems are controllable electronically
and independently from one another. Furthermore, the invention relates to a system
for performing the above-identified method comprising an image-taking device of
the above kind, a video card for digitizing image information taken with the image-taking
device, a data storage for storing the digitized image information, and a processing
device for computer-aided determination of a three-dimensional image of the stored
image information.