This part of ISO 25178 specifies generic procedures for the calibration, adjustment and verification of areal topography measuring instruments defined in ISO 25178-6, and for the determination of their metrological characteristics. This part of ISO 25178 considers metrological characteristics that topography measuring instruments have in common, notably those described in ISO 25178, Parts 601 to 607. Collectively, those standards encompass both microscope based instruments and point sensing instruments with lateral scanning devices. This document presents a method to estimate uncertainty for a large range of surfaces, but not all. The range of surfaces will be dependent on the instrument used, see Clause 6.6.2 describing the topography fidelity. For instrument specific principles, other parts may be developed in the 700 series of ISO 25178. For example, this document covers only instruments without additional arcuate motion, which may be described in a future revision of the ISO 25178-701. This document does not include procedures for area-integrating methods, although those are also defined in ISO 25178-6. For example, light scattering belongs to a class of techniques known as area-integrating methods for measuring surface topography.