A method based on digital image correlation (DIC) is implemented for measuring the height of the roll waves developed in a non-Newtonian fluid flowing on an inclined channel. A projector and a high-resolution digital camera, placed vertically above the fluid surface, are used to project and record a random speckle pattern located on the free liquid surface, where the pattern is deformed due to the developed roll waves. According to the experimental geometry, the height of the roll waves associated to the out-of-plane deformation of the dots is obtained through a quantitative relationship between the experimental parameters and the in-plane displacement field in the flow direction. In terms of this, the out-of-plane deformation is found using a DIC criterion based on the speckle comparison between a reference image without the deformed pattern and an image with a deformed pattern. The maximum height of the roll waves computed with this technique is compared with the height measured using a lateral camera, with both results differing by <10% over the set of experimental instances. (C) 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)