To appropriately evaluate a surface shape of an object to be inspected regardless of the relative positions of a light source and an image-taking device with respect to the object. When evaluating a surface shape, it includes a shape recognition step for recognizing the surface shape of the object to be evaluated, a representative point extraction step for extracting a representing point from therecognized surface shape of the object to be evaluated, a shape specifying step for specifying a shape for a predefined area around the extracted representing point, a vector defining step for defining a light source direction vector with respect to each of the representing points, a representing point select step for selecting, from among all of the representing points, only representing points for which imaginary reflection vectors corresponding to the light source direction vectors are contained within a predefined range from an imaginarily defined direction, and a highlight line creation step for creating a highlight line that is imaginarily generated on the surface of the object to be evaluated based on the highlight point group, i.e., a group of all of the selected representing points, wherein an evaluation of the surface shape of the object to be evaluated is performed based on the created highlight line.