The objective of the study was to assess the potential use of optical measuring instruments to determine the minimum chip thickness in face milling. Images of scanned surfaces were analyzed using mother wavelets. Filtration of optical signals helped identify the characteristic zones observed on the workpiece surface at the beginning of the cutting process. The measurement data were analyzed statistically. The results were then used to estimate how accurate each measuring system was to determine the minimum uncut chip thickness. Also, experimental verification was carried out for each mother wavelet to assess their suitability for analyzing surface images.