Surface roughness is an important factor in determining the satisfactory functioning of the machined components. Conventionally the surface roughness measurement is done with a stylus instrument. Since this measurement process is intrusive and is of contact type, it is not suitable for online measurements. There is a growing need for a reliable, online and non-contact method for surface measurements. Over the last few years, advances in image processing techniques have provided a basis for developing image-based surface roughness measuring techniques. Based upon the vision system, novel methods used for human identification in biometrics are used in the present work for characterization of machined surfaces. The Euclidean and Hamming distances of the surface images are used for surface recognition. Using a CCD camera and polychromatic light source, low-incident-angle images of machined surfaces with different surface roughness values were captured. A signal vector was generated from image pixel intensity and was processed using MATLAB software. A database of reference images with known surface roughness values was established. The Euclidean and Hamming distances between any new test surface and the reference images in the database were used to predict the surface roughness of the test surface. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.