We investigate an optical system for the absolute distance measurement of objects with rough surfaces, using the principle of asynchronous optical sampling (ASOPS). A telescope system collects the scattered laser light that returns from the rough surface and directs it into a collimator with high precision. The contrastive absolute distance measurement experiments are carried out using a plane mirror and objects with rough surfaces. The residual error is kept within 10  μm within a 2-ms sampling time for the rough surfaces. Our results indicate that this ASOPS method is a promising candidate for metrological applications in some industrial sites.