A close up of the probe (the black cylinder at the right of the image) and a cylinder loaded on the machine (the brown cylinder on the left of the image). The probe shines a white light that is 1.8 mm wide (visible as the white line on the cylinder) and analyzes the intensity and color of reflected light to find the height of 180 points on a surface.
This method is meant to illustrate how data collection works for a cylinder. During acquisition, individual measurements of the height at 180 points along a line are taken in quick succession, at slightly different positions, as the cylinder rotates, and then stitched together in analysis software.