Digital Terrain Modeling and Industrial Surface Metrology: Converging Realms

Abstract

Digital terrain modeling has a micro-and nanoscale counterpart in surface metrology , the numerical characterization of industrial surfaces. Instrumentation in semiconductor manufacturing and other high-technology fields can now contour surface irregularities down to the atomic scale. Surface metrology has been revolutionized by its ability to manipulate square-grid height matrices that are analogous to the digital elevation models (DEMs) used in physical geography. Because the shaping of industrial surfaces is a spatial process, the same concepts of analytical cartography that represent ground-surface form in geography evolved independently in metrology. The surface topography of manufactured components, exemplified here by automobile-engine cylinders, is routinely modeled by variogram analysis, relief shading, and most other techniques of parameterization and visualization familiar to geography. This article introduces industrial surface-metrology, examines the field in the context of terrain modeling and geomorphology and notes their similarities and differences, and raises theoretical issues to be addressed in progressing toward a unified practice of surface morphometry. Key Words: digital terrain modeling, industrial surface metrology, morphometry, surface quantification. . . . [N]ew spatial measurements produce new landscapes and new kinds of geography.-Stephen Hall (1992, 8)

Geomorphometry and microelectronic metrology: Converged realms

“…Twenty years ago, the geomorphometrician Richard Pike argued the possibility and expediency of using the mathematical and methodological apparatus of geomorphometry in industrial metrology to control the quality and accuracy of surface treatment of various items (Pike, 2001a, 2001b). The question arises: Why it makes sense again to raise an issue about the relationship of macro‐ and microobject studies including capabilities of geomorphometric, geoscientifically oriented approaches in such a field as microelectronics?…”