Disclosed is a method for determining the optimal exposure time and the number of exposures in a structured light-based 3D camera system. The method includes capturing a reference image onto which first and second patterns are projected, calculating a slope related to brightness and an exposure time for a pixel of the reference image and categorizing a state of the slope, creating an upper loss pixel distribution chart and an accumulation pixel distribution chart by calculating the number of upper loss pixels and the number of accumulation pixels for the exposure time of the structured light-based 3D camera system, and determining the optimal exposure time and the number of exposures of the structured light-based 3D camera system using the upper loss pixel distribution chart and the accumulation pixel distribution chart.