Described herein is a method for examining a coating of a probe surface, including the steps of providing sensing data indicative of a depth of the coating at each of a predetermined subset of probe surface points, determining a depth representation of the coating from the sensing data, and deriving a coating property based on the depth representation. The coating property carries objective information about a geometric constitution or structure of the coating, which can be used for assessing the coating with respect to a functionality that is due to its geometric constitution or structure.