There is a need to accurately characterise the structure of ceramic foams but there is no simple standard experimental method for such evaluation. In the present work the structural characterisation of polymeric and polymer-derived ceramic foams has been accomplished using two different approaches, which are compared. Experimental procedures involved measuring morphological aspects of both type of structures from images acquired by optical and electron microscopies. Data gathered in this work provided the basis for establishing relationships between the final ceramic structures and the respective templates, as well as explaining the mechanical behaviour of the ceramic foams obtained. In what concerns the cell structure a relation was observed, either in the proportion of the closed faces or in the size distributions of the cells. Average cell diameters ranged from 575 to 715 mum in the ceramic foams and 715 to 920 mum in the case of polymeric foams. It was also apparent that the size distributions of the ceramic cells were narrower than those of the respective polymer templates. Visual inspection of the images indicates that electron images furnish better information leading to more accurate data. The quality of information is related to the possibility of focusing within a certain depth of field, which provides acquiring images in such a way that cells approach the volumic dimension; the higher accuracy of data is reflected in the lower standard deviations, for a similar number of measurements.