Application of Gram-Schmidt decomposition for filtering of electron-beam-textured surfaces

Surface topography is well known to affect functional behaviour of engineering surfaces. In particular in Automotive Industry, the micro-geometric properties of the panel surface will influence the forming and painting performance of the autobody panel. In response to this there has been an increasing emphasis on the three-dimensional nature of surfaces in terms of new characterisation techniques and new deterministic surfaces (as opposed to traditionally stochastic), which enable better process control. An innovative technique based on the Gram-Schmidt decomposition is introduced to filter Electron-Beam-Textured (EBT) deterministic surfaces. It is shown that this technique can be very effective in separating the deterministic pattern and obtain a noise-free reconstructed surface.