Non-sinusoidal phase error is common in structured light three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement system, thus we perform theoretical and experimental analyses of such error. The number of non-sinusoidal waveform errors in a 2\pi phase period is the same as the number of steps of the phase-shifting algorithm; no errors occur within the one-phase period. Based on our findings, a new structured light method, the linear sinusoidal phase-shifting method (LSPS), that is resistant to non-sinusoidal phase error is proposed. Experiments show that the non-sinusoidal waveform error is reduced to an almost negligible level (0.001 rad) using the proposed LSPS.