The effects of surface roughness on production of steel sheet are critically reviewed. New developments in the measurement and characterisation of surface roughness seem likely to improve our understanding of its effect on sheet metal production. Much useful information can still be acquired by 2D techniques but increasingly the evidence is that sheet metal surface roughness is better measured and characterised by 3D methods. The facility for direct surface visualization in 3D is shown to be particularly helpful. When measuring 3D the measurement area size and sampling space are critical and for evaluation the filtering of surface data into roughness and waviness is more complicated than for 2D profiles.