A phase unwrapping algorithm with generalized fringe pattern sequence is proposed for absolute phase measurement and phase reconstruction of three-dimensional digital object surfaces with complex topography. Firstly, various phase reconstruction techniques based on temporal phase unwrapping are reviewed and the problems existing in these techniques are pointed out. On the basis of such analysis, the detailed comparison between the fringe sequence algorithm based on positive exponent and the algorithm proposed is made in terms of the noise immunity and computational complexity. It is shown that the proposed approach has better performance. In particular, the fringe sequence algorithm based on positive exponent shows severe noise in the case that the ratio of number of fringes of successive patterns does not equal to 2, whereas the proposed approach is able to work well as usual. Furthermore, the proposed approach can determine the number of projection desired fringes according to practical situation, leading to less encoded fringe patterns required for phase unrapping and decreased processing time. The theoretical analysis and experimental results show the validity of the proposed algorithm.