Machining operations have advanced in speed and there is an increasing demand for higher quality surface finish. It is
therefore necessary to develop real-time surface inspection techniques which will provide sensory information for controlling
the machining processes. This paper describes a practical method for real-time analysis of planed wood using the
photometric stereo technique. Earlier research has shown that the technique is very effective in assessing surface waviness
on static wood samples. In this paper, the photometric stereo method is extended to real industrial applications
where samples are subjected to rapid movements. Surface profiles extracted from the dynamic photometric stereo
method are compared with those from the static measurements and the results show that there is a high correlation
between the two methods
