A simple and inexpensive approach for extracting the threedimensional shape of objects is presented. It is based on `weak structured lighting'; it di ers from other conventional structured lighting approaches in that it requires very little hardware besides the camera: a desk-lamp, a pencil and a checkerboard. The camera faces the object, which is illuminated by the desk-lamp. The user moves a pencil in front of the light source casting a moving shadow on the object. The 3D shape of the object is extracted from the spatial and temporal location of the observed shadow. Experimental results are presented on three di erent scenes demonstrating that the error in reconstructing