ISO 5436-2 introduced into international standardisation the concept of the software measurement standard in the context of the measurement of surface texture. The standard defines Type F1 (reference data) and Type F2 (reference software) software measurement standards for testing the numerical correctness of software used in surface texture measurement.

Software measurement standards

Software measurement standards are used by software developers (as part of instrument manufacture) to help them locate software bugs and check the correctness of their algorithms. Software measurement standards are also used by users (in manufacturing industry) of the software to give them confidence in the correctness of the algorithms and software in their metrology instruments.

Reference data

Reference data takes the form a digital representation of a profile or surface. The data are used as input to the software under test, and the results obtained are compared with reference results provided with the data.

Reference software

Reference software takes the form of traceable computer software against which software in a measuring instrument can be compared. A data set is used as input to both the software under test and the reference software, and the results delivered by the software under test are compared with those provided by the reference software. The most important consideration in the design and development of reference software is its numerical correctness. This is in contrast to the considerations for production software, for which the requirements on numerical correctness are generally more modest, but issues of efficiency, such as computing time and memory, and usability are of concern.