Microscopic examination of the morphology of wear debris is an accepted method for machine condition and fault diagnosis. However wear particle analysis has not been widely accepted in industry because it is dependent on expert interpretation of particle morphology and subjective assessment criteria. This paper was undertaken to analyze the morphology of wear debris for machine condition diagnosis of the lubricated moving surfaces by image processing and analysis. The lubricating wear test was performed under different sliding conditions using a wear test device made in our laboratory and wear testing specimen of the pin-on-disk-type was rubbed in paraffine series base oil. In order to describe characteristics of debris of various shape and size, four shape parameters (50% volumetric diameter, aspect, roundness and reflectivity) have been developed and outlined in the paper. A system using such techniques promises to obviate the need for subjective, human interpretation of particle morphology in machine condition monitoring, thus to overcome many of the difficulties in current methods and to facilitate wider use of wear particle analysis in machine condition monitoring.