An interesting option for 3D object recognition is the triangulation principle. For this purpose a laser line generator is often used. But other structured linear light sources are also possible. For this the linear light has to have a defined width, brightness and sharpness. The linear light on the object, e. g. a groove, is changed by the object’s surface and is detected by digital image processing. Until now such linear light has been created with the help of a complex visual system using laser diodes. Because of some optical disadvantages of laser light, like speckles, in optical measurement applications, this paper examines the effect of using a structured LED light source instead of the laser generator. Consequently, the focus of this research lies on the necessary width, brightness, sharpness, length and depth of focus of the linear light generated by a LED light source for high-precision measuring. This research has been carried out by extensive computer-aided simulations. Several solutions are given and assessed in this paper.