Generation of differential topographic images for surface inspection of long products

Abstract

The current manufacturing industries need efficient quality control systems to ensure their products are free of defects. In most cases, surface inspection is carried out by automatic systems that process 2D images which lack measurable information such as the height or depth of the surface defects. An alternative technology for surface inspection is laser scanning. Using this technique, a 3D representation of a product can be generated and therefore, defects can be easily measured. This paper proposes a real-time algorithm to generate differential topographic images of the surface of a product using laser scanning. The images generated by the proposed method are a flattened representation of the surface of the product which compare it to a perfect-shaped product. In these images, the volumetric defects can be easily segmented and measured using computer vision techniques to fulfill the requirements of the international standards of quality. The proposed algorithm is tested on 500,000 profiles meeting the constraints of real time.

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