Visualization and Detection of Small Defects on CarBodies

Sheet metals of car bodies sometimes have small defects, e. g. dents or ripples with a depth of only a few microns. These defects usually are not visible until varnish is applied. It would be convenient to detect them in advance in order to simplify repairing. We demonstrate how they can be visualized by using optical 3-d sensors and optimum signal processing. For a German car company we developed a fast algorithm that is based on this visualization method.