Abstract In order to characterise chatter marks, in this work, various ground samples are investigated by means of two different optical surface analysis techniques: by using a confocal white light microscope and an angle-resolved light scattering sensor, respectively. The latter is also applied to an industrial belt grinding process in both roughness- and waviness-modes of measuring. These in-process measurements are found in good agreement with those of visual counting. Data processing in terms of the Fourier transformation it is shown to equally well accesses the wavelength of chatter marks in both roughness- and waviness-modes. Therefore it is concluded that chatter marks occurring during the industrial belt grinding can be seen as a superposition of roughness changes and waviness.