Case Study: Enhancing Surface Inspection of Transparent Film with AI

Application and Challenge

Surface inspection is critical in many industries, but traditional image processing often falls short, especially with transparent materials like uncoiled plastic film. Defects such as bubbles, holes, and inclusions can be difficult to distinguish from the background, leading to high rates of pseudo-rejects or, worse, undetected flaws. These issues arise because classical image processing tools, despite extensive options for pre-processing and filtering, struggle with the complex visual characteristics of transparent film.

Solution

To address these challenges, senswork's Neuralyze® software has been employed to implement an AI-driven inspection system specifically designed for transparent film material. This solution integrates advanced techniques, including transmitted light deflectometry, which is essential for making defects visible in the first place.

Transmitted light deflectometry works by directing a strip of light through the film, where diffraction effects caused by material damage create a signal that is easily visible to the human eye. However, standard algorithms typically struggle to detect these signals because the background image often features a sinusoidal pattern, complicating the process.

Neuralyze® overcomes this obstacle by leveraging AI to analyze the complex image data. It accurately identifies bubbles, holes, and other defects with a high degree of reliability, even when these defects are subtly embedded within the film's background pattern.

Key Tasks

• Detection of bubbles or holes in the transparent film
• Identification of inclusions and other surface defects

Benefits

• Effective inspection of transparent surfaces
• High-resolution detection at 40 µm
• Reliable and consistent results, minimizing pseudo-rejects and undetected flaws