This paper presents a new method of surface roughness measurement developed for use in a web-enabled production environment. This method employs an Internet-based vision system to measure and analyze the pattern of scattered light from a surface of an object to derive roughness parameters. The roughness parameters are obtained for a number of metal specimens which are machined to different roughnesses. A correlation curve is established between optical intensity and the corresponding average surface roughness. The quality measurement data is monitored through the web browser while surface roughness parameters are inspected using a machine vision system. This allows the system to operate over the Internet since the machine vision system is integrated with LabVIEW-based graphic user interface (GUI).
