A location, dimension, and height of an object can be determined and measured using shadows. The object is located on a surface and an array of lights is mounted over the surface and shines on the object. The surface can be switchable between a translucent state and a transparent state. A colored shadow occurs based on the color of the light that shines on the object, where red, green, and blue are the typical colors used to provide shadows. A camera that is located below the surface captures an image of the shadows. The camera can be a color camera or a monochrome camera. The image is processed using thresholding to segment the different types of shadows that can occur. With the shadows, calculations can be made to determine the location, dimension, and height of the object.