3D shape acquisition of object surface has been widely used in the fields of intelligent manufacturing, aerospace, cultural relics protection, health care, remote education, and so on. Due to the limitation of hardware performance, especially the projection speed of existing digital projection system, 3D shape of object can not be obtained quickly. Hence, the appearance of color imaging and projection system provides a new research direction for 3D imaging system of parallel color channel. This paper reviews the status of 3D shape measurement techniques by projecting and capturing colour fringe pattern images on the object surface in detail. The principle of colour fringe projection technique, the modulation and demodulation of colour fringe pattern, the calibration of 3D imaging system and the directions for future research are analyzed. Moreover, several case studies are illustrated to obtain the 3D shape and colour texture using colour fringe projection techniques. This paper summarizes the 3D shape measurement techniques based on colour fringe pattern images on the object surface elaborately, and the challenging issues and future research directions are also discussed to advance the 3D measurement techniques.