Although grinding is considered one of the more established manufacturing processes, it is still relatively poorly understood. In particular, the interaction of the wheel with the workpiece at times seems more like an art than a science. In this presentation, a 3-D topographic measurement approach which encompasses both the wheel and the workpiece will be presented. The topographic information obtained from the wheel will be applied to a model to predict the workpiece surface generated which will then be verified by experimentation. The preliminary results demonstrate a good correlation between the predicted and actual surface generated. Further research is now underway test the robustness of the model for a variety of wheel types and materials.