CSIRO Wool Technology in Geelong has traditionally focussed on 'post-farm' wool research but is now expanding its activities to include textile related research and development for the wider Australian industry, including cotton. With approximately 200 staff at its laboratories and full mill processing facility in Geelong, CSIRO Wool Technology has extensive expertise in raw wool measurement and characterisation, wool textile processing, characterisation and optimisation of wool fabric properties and the development of new wool products. Much of this expertise can be applied to other fibres as illustrated in the current paper. In a preliminary study the Sirolan- Laserscan, developed at Wool Technology for measuring the fibre diameter characteristics of wool, has been successfully applied in a novel mode of operation to accurately assess cotton fibre fineness.