DIGITIZATION OF SURFACE PROFILES

The increasing dependence of surface roughness analysis upon digital computation causes a consequential need to specify conditions for digitizing the data. Measurement conditions should be related to the functional significance of the measurements, but there are occasions when the conditions must be specified without the necessary information being available. In this paper concern is with such occasions, with particular reference to the digitization sample interval of data from stylus-based profile-measuring systems. Aspects of the interaction of this interval and the finite stylus size with the surface are discussed and practical examples are given. It is unlikely that a general answer to the problem of sampling interval exists but plausible practical schemes can be suggested empirically. © 1979.