The energies involved in various surface atomic processes such as surface diffusion, the binding of small atomic clusters on the surface, the interaction between two adsorbed atoms, the dissociation of an atom from a small cluster or from a surface layer, the binding of kink site atoms or atoms at different adsorption sites to the surfacet etc. can be derived from an analysis of field ion microscope images and a kinetic energy measurement of low temperature field desorbed ions using the time-of-flight atom-probe field ion microscope. These energies can be used to understand the transport of atoms on the surface in atomic reconstructions, epitaxial growth of surface layers and crystal growth, adaorption layer superstructure formation, and also why an atomic ordering or atomic reconstruction at the surface is energetically favored. Mechanisms of some of the surface atomic processes are also clarified from these studies.