Accounting for customers' perception of manufactured goods has become a major challenge for the industry. This process is to be established from early design to retail. Customers are nowadays more aware and detail oriented about perceived quality of products. This allows one to set not only an estimated price but also the expected quality of the product. Surface appearance analysis has therefore become a key industrial issue. Two approaches are proposed here to formalize the detection methodology and provide objective criteria for experts to evaluate surface anomalies. The first proposed approach is based on surface metrology. It consists in analyzing the measured topologies in order to bind aspect to geometric characteristics. A multi-scale procedure based on Discrete Modal Decomposition is implemented and allows an effective separation of geometric variations. Accordingly, appearance anomalies can be isolated from other geometrical features. This method enables the calculation of surface curvatures in a simplified and robust manner. It is shown that such geometric information is relevant and bound to visual aspect. The presented work also emphasizes the influence of raw data in aspect analysis. Two main metrological difficulties are investigated: the presence of outliers (High frequencies) and the presence of non surface-related geometric defects, generated by the measuring device (Low frequencies). An innovative method for identifying outliers in surface metrology is presented. It is based on a multi-scale statistical approach. Finally, the issue of geometrical variation due to positioning tables is also addressed. A calibration protocol based on DMD that intends to correct this phenomenon is proposed. The second proposed approach, more global, is based on the interaction of a surface with its light environment. It aims at providing experts with assistance, specifically during the anomaly detection phase. The presented work uses Polynomial Texture Mapping. This technique consists of calculating the reflectance at each point of the surface and simulating its appearance while the lighting angles vary. A surface Inspection Support Device based on this principle is presented and detailed. Finally, an industrial study is proposed that shows how these two academic approaches can be combined within a global industrial methodology dedicated to surface appearance quality.
