Abstract. Manufacturing Engineering domain generally uses for creating virtual work piece profiles or tool representations descriptive parameters or simplified drawings. More recent and accurate methods such as the present study uses optical devices for obtaining virtual projections of work pieces/tools. This paper presents an experimental method applied in order to obtain the profile for a given cutting tool, which can offer in addition possibility to estimate the cutting tool wear, without using such built-in machine-tool device. The experimental values obtained are materialized by the accuracy which characterizes the accurate profile of the measured cutting tool. This fact can make a difference between a classical measurement method applied outside of machine tool sector and a new one provided by a device which offers the solution to measure a work piece directly on the machine tool, without modifying the actual work piece orientation conditions and at a low price.