Surface library

Ever wonder what the surface texture of your phone screen looks like? Curious what makes metal look shiny or dull? Need a way to demonstrate the difference between turned, ground, and honed surfaces?

The Surface Library contains data that will help you to explore, understand, and explain surface texture. Over the years we have generated and collected thousands of measurement datasets, and we are sharing some of the more useful and interesting datasets here. Some show common, manufactured and organic surfaces. Others help show how particular analyses affect data. And some are…well, just fun. Whether you’re a researcher, teacher, student, or curious human, the data in this library should prove interesting and helpful for you!

All data is saved as .os3d files, the native format for OmniSurf3D software. If you’re not already an OmniSurf3D user you can download a 10-day free trial version. If you’re already a user, we include tips and tricks for analyzing and displaying each dataset.

If you encounter questions along the way, feel free to email us—we would be glad to help out.

Available Datasets

Please log in below to download the datasets. If you’re new to the page, please take a moment to register here.

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