Machine Vision Techniques for Visual Inspection

Some of the above algorithms, together with the P3E architecture, can be used in real-world industrial applications. The most obvious case is that of non-destructive testing using CT reconstruction, as was shown in Sect. 6.5. However, there are other uses of P3E such as automated visual inspection. In this chapter, we will describe the application of P3E-based machine vision algorithms to automated visual inspection of thin-film disk-heads. A common experience in industrial applications of computer vision is that the problem of finding a set of image processing and image analysis algorithms cannot be separated from that of searching for a suitable architecture. In early studies, we estimated that a pipeline architecture should be appropriate for the inspection of thin-film heads. Having this possibility in mind, we tried to find algorithms amenable to raster-scan implementation.