The aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility of using a thermographic camera for metallic surface roughness evaluation. First, the surface of a metal plate containing 6 rectangular areas of known roughness was illuminated using an infrared source. Next, the reflected radiation temperature of those 6 areas was measured. Finally, the root mean square temperature for each of the areas was computed and compared with reference surface roughness value. Experiments were repeated for different infrared radiation source position relatively to the metal plate