An improvement for the application of computer-assisted stereophotogrammetry to ceramics is presented. To compensate for the lack of contrast in the fracture facets in scanning electron microscopy fractographs, a special decoration technique has been developed. The structure of the fracture facets is enhanced via heat treatment of a sputtered gold layer. This procedure enables the measurement of the three dimensional location of more than 10 000 points on the fracture surface by means of automatic stereophotogrammetry.