A non-contact type measurement system is specially devised to measure the width of a piston ring groove in the grinding process. This system comprises a line camera with an imaging lens, collimated white light source, and a one axis translation stage. When the measurement system movesalong the diagonal direction of the cylinder, the line camera captures an image. By analyzing such images, the width of the piston ring groove can be determined. The experimental results prove that the proposed system is useful, especially as a monitoring system in grinding piston ring grooves on cylinders with accuracy of several micrometers in an area of dozens of millimeters.