In the spiral bevel and hypoid gear manufacturing industry@ master pinions and gears are usually developed from initial machine settings obtained from computer software such as The Gleason Works?? TCA@ which are then modified until a satisfactory bearing pattern is obtained@ as ??the target tooth flank form?? to compensate for heat treatment distortions and to consider lapping cannot be accounted for by existing computer software. Once a satisfactory combination of master pinion and gear is obtained@ their actual tooth surfaces may not correspond to those of the theoretical model. In this case@ corrective machine settings calculated from the measurement of the production tooth flanks by a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) are applicable only in relation to the actual target tooth flank measurement data@ as the theoretical tooth flank definition is unknown. This paper presents a computer based approach used to find the machine settings producing a theoretical tooth surface closest to that of a measured surface@ which incidentally can be the target tooth flank@ what the authors call Surface Matching@ in order to effectively use corrective machine settings in reference to the theoretical surface. The approach is applicable to both first and second order surface match@ for the Fixed Setting@ Spread Blade@ Formate and Helixform cutting processes. The Surface Matching algorithm can then be used in the opposite direction@ e.g.@ to match the measured data to the theoretical target tooth form definition@ such as to calculate corrective machine settings.