In this paper, a method has been proposed for error measurement/diagnosis of CNC machine tools using the ball link bar on three dimensional space. For the circular motion error measurement, deviation between the desired and actual test path has been measured and analysed using a new type of ball link which incorporates ideal three point contact between reference balls and sockets. Computer program for the error evaluation has been developed and implemented under PC environment. Using the developed program, the circular test data on a CNC machine tool have been analysed, and thus, machine tool errors were effectively evaluated.