Production of reliable, repeatable coatings requires precise control of the process used to deposit them. Significant advances have recently been made in controlling the inputs to thermal spray processes, however, much work remains to be done to control process outputs and to correlate these with coatings characteristics. Thermal spray processes comprise the heating/melting, acceleration, impact, rapid solidification and incremental build-up of a large number of individual particles. Particle velocity is a key process parameter in determining coating properties such as density/porosity, bond strength and residual stress. Laser Stroboscopy and optical image analysis techniques have been used to image particles traveling in high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) and air plasma spray (APS) jets. Results indicate that these techniques can be used to measure particle velocity, trajectory and velocity distribution(s) in thermal spray jets. mean particle velocities of {approximately}400 m/s and {approximately}100 m/s have been measured for HVOF and APS respectively.