Abstract: To address the issue of unquantifiability and subjectivity in the identification of defects at the cigarette tobacco end, a method for detecting tobacco end defects based on 3D line structured light technology was proposed. A 3D morphology scanning platform was constructed using a line structured light sensor to acquire three-dimensional point cloud data of tobacco end through line scanning. Mathematical quantification models for defects including loose ends, sunken ends, and protuberant ends were established. The results showed that the average measurement error of this method was less than 1.000%, and the relative standard deviation (RSD) of multiple repeated measurements was also less than 1.000%. Tests on 30 commercially available cigarette brands of different circumferences yielded the following defect parameter ranges: loose end depth (0.326-0.782 mm), the ratio of loose end sectional area to the tobacco end area (0.159-0.367), sunken end depth (0-0.725 mm), the ratio of sunken end length to tobacco end circumference (0-0.283) and height of protuberant tobacco end (0.356-1.387 mm). This method effectively achieved accurate quantification of multiple types of the end defects, reflecting the differences in tobacco end quality control among different cigarette brands, and providing a three-dimensional detection method with high-precision and quantifiability for tobacco end defect detection.