1. A system for measuring the shape characteristics of a plurality of objects comprising: a first object having a plurality of locations on a plurality of surfaces to be inspected; a structured light source disposed at a first angle to illuminate said first object; a camera disposed at a second angle from said first angle such that the locations on the surfaces of said first object can be found in three dimensional space, said camera adapted to create an image from light reflected from said first object; an array of light gathering elements for gathering the imaged light from said camera and converting said imaged light into an electrical signal; analysis means adapted to determine shape characteristics by dividing the image of the object into a multiplicity of simplified surface primitives and edge primitives and finding a set of three dimensional locations on each contributing primitive; and inspection means by which the same shape characteristics of a plurality of subsequent objects are determined; wherein, a plurality of objects are inspected by illuminating said first object with said structured light source, creating an image of said first object with said camera, converting the image into an electrical signal with said array of light gathering elements, analyzing the signal with the analysis means, repeating the process for each of said subsequent objects, and comparing results with results from said first object.