Patent · US Expired

Real time automated inspection

US4519041A · kind A · utility

90Cited by
5References
24Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 3, 1982
Grant dateMay 21, 1985
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 3, 2002

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T2207/30136
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A method and apparatus relating to the real time automatic detection and classification of characteristic type surface imperfections occurring on the surfaces of material of interest such as moving hot metal slabs produced by a continuous steel caster. A data camera transversely scans continuous lines of such a surface to sense light intensities of scanned pixels and generates corresponding voltage values. The voltage values are converted to corresponding digital values to form a digital image of the surface which is subsequently processed to form an edge-enhanced image having scan lines characterized by intervals corresponding to the edges of the image. The edge-enhanced image is thresholded to segment out the edges and objects formed by the edges are segmented out by interval matching and bin tracking. Features of the objects are derived and such features are utilized to classify the objects into characteristic type surface imperfections.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.