This paper presents the results of the SHREC'17 contest on retrieval of surfaces with similar relief patterns. The proposed task was created in order to verify the possibility of retrieving surface patches with a relief pattern similar to an example from a database of small surface elements. This task, related to many real world applications, requires an effective characterization of local "texture" information not depending on patch size and bending. Retrieval performances of the proposed methods reveal that the problem is not quite easy to solve and, even if some of the proposed methods demonstrate promising results, further research is surely needed to find effective relief pattern characterization techniques for practical applications.