THIS PAPER DESCRIBES TWO DIFFERENT MACHINE- VISION BASED OPTICAL TECHNIQUES FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF SURFACE TEXTURE OF MACHINED PARTS. THE TEXTURE INFORMATION OF INTEREST ARE SURFACE ROUGHNESS AND SURFACE FLAWS. THESE TECHNIQUES UTILIZE THE LIGHT SCATTERING OR DIFFRACTION PROPERTY OF THE SURFACE FOR TEXTURE CHARACTERIZATION. THE IMAGE RESULTING FROM LIGHT SCATTERING OR DIFFRACTION FROM A SURFACE IS CAPTURED AND PROCESSED BY A MACHINE VISION SYSTEM TO OBTAIN A GREY LEVEL HISTOGRAM FROM WHICH SEVERAL STATISTICAL DESCRIPTORS ARE DERIVED TO QUANTIFY SURFACE TEXTURE. THESE ARE THEN CORRELATED TO THE ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENTS MADE BY A STYLUS DEVICE. SCRATCH MARKS AND DENTS ALSO ARE DETECTED BY COMPARING THE TEXTURE PARAMETERS TO THOSE FROM A BLEMISH-FREE SURFACE.
