Optical surface inspection apparatus

Optical surface inspection apparatus for material webs the apparatus comprising an illuminating means for generating a strip of light on the surface of the material web to be inspected and a photoelectric light receiving means which receives the light remitted or diffusely reflected from the surface region illuminated by the strip of light and which directs it to a photoreceiving arrangement, with the photoreceiving arrangement delivering a signal representative of web faults to an electronic processing circuit, characterized in that the light receiving device (13) includes at least one row camera (14) having a diode row (15) and serving as a photoreceiving arrangement, with the row camera (14) receiving remitted light from a line on the surface which is illuminated by the light strip (12) and forming an image of the line on the diode row (15) and with the row camera also being arranged at such a shallow observing angle .alpha. to the tangential plane to the surface at the location of the light strip (12) that faults (20) of low height which project out of the surface (19) of the material web (18) appear to the row camera (14) as a shadow outline against the bright background of the light strip (12), so that a corresponding electrical signal is transmitted from the diode row (15) to the electronic processing circuit (16).