Patent ID: 7012701

Claim:
Method for characterizing a surface ( 20 ) having a localized unevenness ( 21 a , 21 b , 22 a , 22 b ), comprising: creating ( 10 ) a plurality of adjacent contour lines of the surface to create a two-dimensional height representation of the surface, a contour line of the surface being created as a function of a location variable (φ); detecting ( 12 ) the localized unevenness ( 21 a , 21 b , 22 a , 22 b ) in the two-dimensional height representation, wherein the step of detecting ( 12 ) comprises creating a variation representation from the height representation ( 50 ), detecting localized points of unevenness delimited by edges using a variation threshold, and detecting essentially edge-free localized points of unevenness using the variation threshold ( 52 ); and eliminating ( 14 ) the detected points of unevenness delimited by edges and the detected essentially edge-free points of unevenness from the height representation, so that an incomplete representation of the surface results which characterizes the surface without the localized unevenness.