The laser speckle correlation method has found widespread application for obtaining information from vibrating objects. However, the resolution and accuracy of the laser speckle correlation method as they relate to the defocusing degree have not been analyzed sufficiently. Furthermore, the possible methods for speckle pattern quality assessment and enhancement have not been studied. In this study, the resolution and accuracy of the laser speckle correlation method are analyzed, and it is found that they are affected by the defocusing degree and speckle pattern quality, respectively. A new speckle pattern quality criterion combining the mean intensity gradient and frequency spectrum was proposed, called CMZ. The quality of the speckle pattern is higher when the CMZ is closer to zero. The proposed criterion was verified by simulated speckle patterns and real speckle patterns with different speckle sizes, densities, and gray contrasts. In the experimental setup stage, a suitable defocusing degree can be selected based on the resolution requirement and optimal speckle size, and other experimental parameters can be determined according to the CMZ criterion. Rotation and vibration experiments verified the effectiveness of the laser speckle correlation method and confirmed the reliability of the experiment preparation based on proposed CMZ criterion.
High-frequency full-field vibration measurement using three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) is limited by the trade-off between camera frame rate, spatial resolution, and measurement noise. This study presents a method to overcome the frame-rate limitation of 3D-DIC vibration measurement by combining stroboscopic equivalent-time sampling with spatiotemporal noise decoupling. Short-pulse stroboscopic illumination freezes structural motion at different vibration phases, allowing a low-frame-rate stereo camera system to reconstruct high-frequency periodic responses through inter-cycle phase sampling. The measured three-dimensional displacement fields are further processed as space–time data, where target-frequency extraction and spatial-frequency filtering are combined to suppress noise and enhance small-amplitude vibration responses. The proposed method was experimentally validated using a plastic plate vibrating at 251.1 Hz. With an actual camera frame rate of approximately 8.34 fps and an equivalent temporal sampling frequency of 2511 Hz, the reconstructed mode shape achieved a Modal Assurance Criterion (MAC) value of 0.9233, comparable to that obtained using a high-speed camera (0.9225), while providing higher spatial resolution and lower hardware cost. A pulse-width experiment on an aluminum plate vibrating at 7154 Hz demonstrated the influence of stroboscopic exposure duration on measurement accuracy. The proposed approach was further integrated into the EMODE-1 full-field vibration measurement system and applied to a Lenovo ThinkPad touchpad vibrating at 1051 Hz, achieving a MAC value of 0.8878 compared with continuous-scanning laser Doppler vibrometry. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed method for high-frequency full-field vibration sensing of periodic structures using compact and cost-effective imaging systems.