Author(s)

David J. Whitehouse

Abstract

There have for many years been advocates for two ways of measuring surfaces; the stylus method and optical methods. This paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of both and indicates the nature and the magnitude of the differences to be expected. 1 Introduction The most common method for measuring surfaces is the stylus technique in which a sharp diamond stylus is made to traverse the workpiece. The stylus penetrates the valleys and rides the peaks thereby revealing a profile of the surface geometry (Ref. 1). There are many optical methods ranging through interferometry, diffraction and optical follower techniques (Ref. 2). In all these traditional forms the basic underlying quality is determined by the numerical aperture of the optics as will be seen later. The usual criticisms are that styl

Keywords