Resolving Selected Problems in Surface Topography Analysis by Application of the Autocorrelation Function

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Write the research gap after introduction section.

2. Conclusions may be modified with data.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please find in the attached file, I hope, all of the required responses for the issues raised.

Best regards,

Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author, you have submitted a good article with interesting results for consideration. For a better understanding of the material, it is necessary to perform the following corrections:

1.    At the end of the chapter "Introduction" it should be indicated the purpose of the study, formulate the scientific contribution of the research and highlight the scientific hypotheses on the basis of which the research is carried out.

2.    Highlight the innovativeness of your methodology.

3.    Highlight the possibilities of the industrial application of your methodology.

4.    It makes more sense to place chapter 4. "The outlook" after chapter 5. "Conclusion”.

5.    The font of all the figures should be substantially increased.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

In the attached file you can find, I hope, all of the required responses for the issues raised.

Best regards,

Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The words on the picture are not very clear. It is suggested to enhance the clarity.

Figure 3 needs to show where the enlarged details are in oringin graphs.

There are too many references.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please find in the attached docx file all of the required and, respectively I hope, suitable responses for the comments raised.

Best regards,

Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This work reported the application of Autocorrelation Function in surface topography analysis with benefits of resolving some measurement problems. Autocorrelation Function showed promising feature extraction on different types of surfaces to improve the accuracy of the surface topography measurement. According to my opinion, this work should be published in Coatings. However, there are some issues should be addressed before publication.

 

1.      The discussion of the results needs to be more detailed. For example, in page 6 line 255, the author should specify what features in the figures make Poly2 more “encouraging” than GRF and SF. Adding some arrows/marks in the figures might make it easier to catch author’s opinion.

2.      In line 125, the author mentioned over 20 surfaces were measured. Is there a supplementary material to summarize the results from these tests?

3.      The author compared the extraction of different features. How would ACF perform with the combined features (overlap or half-half)? Besides, the features in the paper were at relatively large scale (um to mm). Would ACF show similar improvement with smaller features?

4.      There were plenty result comparisons in the figures which contained too much information. The author listed many ISO 25178 parameters in the figures and spent so many words to explain the name of these parameters (page 3, line138-148). However, the meaning and importance of these parameters were missed. It might be better to keep only few key parameters in the figures, add more discussion on those parameters and leave the rest into a supplementary material. Using tables might be easier for a side-by-side comparison of these parameters.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please find (in the additional docx file) responses for all of the suggestions raised.

Best regards,

Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

1. I consider it logical that the "Outlook" section should come after the "Conclusion" section. However, the editor ultimately determines the presentation logic of the material both in the journal as a whole and in the article separately.

2. The same applies to the font size. It is not at all necessary to separate figures, as the author suggests. It is sufficient to edit the diagrams' font separately in any graphic editor, rather than using the font from the screen image. If the editor considers it possible to use figures with a font size that makes it difficult for readers to understand the material of the article, then the author, of course, may use the font size originally presented in the figures.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Both suggestions, counting modification of the section order and Figures font sizes, were improved according to the mentioned requirements.

Best regards,

Author