Laser surface characteristic measuring

A high speed method and apparatus for accepting and rejecting an object by identifying specific surface features of interest of an object includes providing at least one non-contact sensor capable of measuring a characteristic of a surface and a transporter system for creating relative motion between the sensor and an object while repetitively making measurements of a surface of the object with multiple readings being taken with the sensor at each of multiple locations in order to create a data set. A data analysis system mathematically processes the surface characteristic data and positional data into surface feature data which represents three-dimensional surface features of the object. The data analysis system correlates the surface feature data with data representative of ideal surface features of an object in order to determine an amount of deviation of the measured surface feature data from data representative of ideal surface features to accept or reject the object by determining whether the amount of deviation is within a provided limit.