Software Design and Features for an NDE Image Processing Workstation

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this paper is to describe the engineering features of industrial NDE image processing workstation software currently under development in the Iowa State University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. The software package is designed for use on a generic image processing platform consisting of a commercially available UNIX workstationclass host computer interfaced to a frame grabber board and video camera, and incorporates image processing software developed at ISU's Center for NDE. This image processing software has been developed for use on noisy, low-contrast x-ray images, and has demonstrated its ability to enhance and extract flaws in such images. PACKAGE DESIGN OBJECfiVES AND FEATURESThe design objectives of this project are based on perceived user needs gathered through interaction with the industrial sponsors of the Center for NDE at Iowa State University. These sponsors have indicated that they would like to see an integrated image capture and processing workstation with both a large repertoire of image processing capability and a friendly, intuitive user interface.Thus, the package design objectives are: 1) To provide a user-friendly interface to image processing software that is particularly useful for NDE image processing. 2) To allow the user to produce useful results (i.e. detected flaws) without requiring him/her to become an image processing expert. 3) To provide a wide range of utilities such as image compression and annotation, image file format conversions, audit trails of image processing steps, and macro building. 4) To provide an interface for users who wish to add their own processing algorithms to the package. 5) To make the software as device-independent as possible. 6) To make modification and enhancement of the package by a software developer straightforward. Review of Progress in 1073The user interface allows selection and execution of package functions through an organized hierarchy of menus. The user selects menu items by pointing and clicking with a mouse, and enters input parameters using the mouse and/or the keyboard. On-line help is provided for each menu item and is accessed by clicking the appropriate mouse button on the item. (A twobutton mouse is assumed in the design of the package.) Several different types of windows are used to pass information between the user and the program. On-line help, as well as package configuration information, is displayed in the Information Window. Menu Windows display available menu selections. The Acknowledgement Window advises the user of dangerous situations (e.g. unsaved data in buffer when the user quits the program), and has graphics "buttons" to allow the user to either take the action advised in the window or ignore the message. The Value Window allows the user to interactively change the value of an input parameter to an image processing routine in an interactive processing session. The System Window provides a UNIX shell in which the user may execute UNIX commands from within the package. Image ...

Flaw reconstruction in NDE using a limited number of X-ray radiographic projections

“…This type of reconstruction routine has been incorporated into a commercial image processing software package being developed at ISU (Brown et al 1990). Among the features of this package are that it is user friendly, it is menu and mouse driven, and it is easy to augment with new routines as they become available.…”

Flaw reconstruction in NDE using a limited number of x-ray radiographic projections

“…With the permeation of graphics workstation computers into NDE, an interactive stereographic reconstruction routine is feasible in which the stereo image pairs are displayed side by side and features are reconstructed by interactively identifying corresponding feature points in the left and right images. This type of reconstruction routine has been incorporated into a commercial image processing software package being developed at ISU (Brown et al 1990). Among the features of this package are that it is user friendly, it is menu and mouse driven, and it is easy to augment with new routines as they become available.…”