This paper covers the efforts of developing a compact dressing attachment on a cylindrical grinding machine for on-line laser dressing of wheels used in internal grinding of SAE-52100 bearing steel parts. With this attachment, alumina wheel was dressed with different conditions of dressing and its suitability for grinding was evaluated by analysing the topography on laser dressed wheel surface with scanning electron microscope and confocal laser scanning microscope. Out of these images, confocal microscopic images were found to present 3d images of dressed wheel surface. Evaluation of these images, in terms of Spk, Sk and Svk parameters obtained from bearing area curves, and their comparison with those parameters obtained from the images over diamond dressed surface, indicated the suitability of dressing leads of 0.016 mm/rev and 0.032 mm/rev for dressing of wheels with pulsed laser radiation. Effectiveness of these conditions was further established by evaluating the performance of laser dressed wheels in terms of G-ratio values, form error and finish observed on ground parts. Further, this work suggests the application of on-line imaging and analysis of laser dressed surface for quickly identifying suitable conditions of dressing of internal grinding wheels with on-line laser dressing attachment so as to make laser dressing as an economically viable process for certain critical applications. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd