The circular sinusoidal fringe has a constant phase (encoded as zero phase) at the circular center, and its center can be used as a reference point for phase unwrapping to obtain absolute phase for calculating the height information of the measured object. As the carrier phase of the circular fringe is a non-linear function, the existing Fourier transform method based on circular fringe projection needs to solve a quadratic equation, judge roots, and fit to obtain the pixel displacement corresponding to height information of object surface. The robustness of the algorithm is not good in fact. In this paper, an improved circular fringe projection profilometry based on Fourier transform is proposed and investigated. By projecting another fringe with horizontal movement, the calculation of pixel displacement in circular fringe profilometry is simplified, and the calculation of pixel displacement is changed from solving a first-order equation to solving a quadratic equation. The robustness and surface reconstruction accuracy of circular fringe profilometry based on Fourier transform are improved. Computer simulation and experiments validate the effectiveness of proposed method in 3D measurement, which is especially suitable for out-of-plane measurement of the whole plane.