Abstract: The present invention relates to methods for designing and creating surface microstructures and includes 3D scanning of existing surface microstructures as well as transferring processed data of the scanned microstructures to a material using a proper writing tool. Surface microstructures created with the methods of the invention have a wide field of applications, such as for security features in optical security elements, alignment layers for liquid crystals, antireflection surfaces, AR/VR applications, optical filters, light coupling, micro-optics, as well as for light management in many different technical areas.