Gaussian filtering of three-dimensional engineering surface topography

The study of surface topography in engineering is of importance for a large number of application areas. A necessary step in the study of the functional significance of surface topography in an application is to identify and separate the functionally significant components of the surface in preparation for subsequent analysis. A filter commonly used in profile filtering is the Gaussian filter that corrects the phase distortion drawbacks of the standardised 2RC filters and is currently considered by an ISO technical committee to replace the 2RC filter as the standard filter for 2-D profile filtering. In this paper we consider the characteristics and suitability of the Gaussian filter for surface filtering in general and present a detailed study of the Gaussian filter for three-dimensional surface topography filtering.