Non-contact methods for NDT of aeronautical structures : An image processing workstation for thermography

The main goals of the Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione in Task 4., Subtasks 4.3.1 (Image Processing) and 4.3.2 (Workstation Architecture) were the study of thermograms features, the design of the architecture of a customized workstation and the project of specialized algorithms for thermal image analysis. Thermograms features pertain to data acquisition, data archiving and data processing; following general study some basic requirements for the workstation were defined. "Data acquisition" The workstation should perform the management of acquisition equipments, should be able to acquire on-line and off-line images, CCIR and asynchronous signals. "Data archiving" Multimedial archives for standard image format should be provided capable of storing data with variable spatial and radiometric precisions. "Data processing" The workstation should allow real-time capability, automatic data interpretation and computer-aided thermogram evaluation. According to the previous statements the following project criteria were stated: o Implementation of a dedicated environment for algorithm testing-debugging and for working in a problem-oriented context o Integration of different kinds of data (images, models, graphs, etc) o Connection to a distributed system for NDT In order to perform the required operations the workstation should be composed of a computing system, a mass-storage device, a frame memory for pictorial images and a dedicated memory for Man-Machine Interaction.