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Direct optical access to the combustion chamber of a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine provides extremely valuable information about the combustion process. Experimental measurements of the geometric characteristics of the turbulent flame—such as the flame radius, flame center, flame edges and flame brush thickness—are of fundamental interest in support of the development and validation of any combustion model. To determine the macroscopic properties of sprays and flames, visualization and digital image processing techniques are typically used in controlled experimental setups like single-cylinder optical engines or closed vessels, while optical measurements on mass-production engines are more uncommon. In this paper the optical experimental setup (consisting of a high-speed camera, a laser light source and a data acquisition system) used to characterize the planar turbulent flame propagation in the cylinder of a 3.5 L GDI V6 mass-production engine, is described. The image acquisition process and the image processing that is necessary to evaluate the geometric characteristics of the propagating flame front, which are usually omitted in the referenced literature, are reported in detail to provide a useful guideline to other researchers. The results show that the step-by-step algorithm and the calculation formulae proposed allow to retrieve clear visualizations of the propagating flame front and measurements of its geometrical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]