A method for the optical surface flaws inspection based on the fringe reflection was proposed. The test system is composed of the liquid crystal display, CCD camera and a computer. The intensity-modulated patterns are generated on the screens on both the horizontal and vertical respectively. The CCD records the pattern images via the tested surface. The phase and amplitude modulation are calculated by the phase-shift technique. The flaws location can be got from the fringe contrast. Also the height of the flaws can be gained by integration from the phase change caused by the flaws. This method is simple and cheap. Compared with other techniques, this technique can get the three dimension information of the flaws. The experimental results have confirmed the feasibility of this method.