Software relocation of 3D surface topography measurements

In a number of 3D surface topography measurements it is both necessary and of great use to relocate exactly the same area, e.g., in the study of wear processes, in correlation studies of slightly overlapping characterisation techniques, and in the study of replica techniques. The objective of the pr esent paper is to evaluate the performance of an automatic relocation proce ss based on a simplex algorithm. The method is implemented in MATLAB(TM). T he cross-correlation coefficient between the topographical data determines the evolution of the relocation process. Two variations of the method are u sed, i.e., one uses the full range of the input data and the second uses a truncated version of the input data. The truncation is based in selected pe rcentages of the bearing area curve. Four different surfaces and two differ ent techniques are used in this study. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r ights reserved.