Surface roughness is a very important factor influencing overall quality of products of modern industry. There are numerous methods of measurements of surface roughness. A very important group of roughness measurements instruments are mobile ones. They are particularly useful in measurements under industrial conditions. However, precision and accuracy of results obtained with the use of mobile instruments can depend on an operator. Therefore, the question is how accurate are measurements carried out with mobile instruments. The paper describes problems relating to measurements of roughness with mobile instruments. It also presents results of statistical testing of the precision and accuracy of a typical portable instrument.

The aim of the analysis was to develop an algorithm for one- and two-dimensional filtering of profiles using approximation by means of B-splines. The theory of B-spline functions introduced by Schoenberg and extended by Unser et al. was used. Unlike the spline filter proposed by Krystek, which is described in the ISO standards, the algorithm does not take account of the bending energy of the filtered profile in the functional whose minimization is the principle of the filter. Appropriate smoothness of a filtered profile is achieved by selecting an appropriate distance between the nodes of a spline function. The paper includes examples of separation of 2D and 3D roughness.

Certificated reference material (CRM) has been used for calibration works in industry. The easy way to calibrate for reliable measurements is to compare with a CRM, which has a traceability chain from length standard. The design of a KRISS step height CRM has various patterns for checking of magnification, spherical aberration, and step height as well, which is available for multi-probe inspection machines in the manufacturing lines. The fabrication had been done by conventional optical lithography and dry etching technique with optimized conditions. In order to verify the step values, a white-light scanning interferometer was adopted with different magnification objectives. In this paper, the step values of 0.5 and 1.6 µm were realized with the standard deviation of less than 10 nm.

The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt has recently refurbished its geodetic baseline in Braunschweig, Germany, and the baseline is now supplied with an inclusive set of environmental sensors for weather observations. The Finnish Geodetic Institute calibrated the baseline in June 2011. In the calibration, the observers also used conventional instruments, common in surveying work, to obtain weather data. By comparing the two weather data sets and the results computed when using them, it is possible to demonstrate the good capability of conventional instruments, when properly used. The results of the comparison, which are applicable in electronic distance measurements for conventional surveying, are presented in this paper.

In coordinate metrology, the estimation methods of uncertainties in a specific measuring strategy are key techniques. In this article, we formulate the novel uncertainty evaluation methods using software error propagation. The proposed method deals with the CMM software as the black box and the variances and covariance of point coordinates uncertainties are estimated by CMM kinematic error, probing system error and form deviations of the measured workpiece. The round robin tests of uncertainties estimating are carried out and the results are evaluated. We confirm the availability of the proposed method by comparisons the measured results and the estimation values.