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Chapter 8: B. Special Gages and Applications 79
gravity. Consequently, a real interferometer is necessarily a highly refined and
complex instrument; only its basic elements have been described here.
Machine Vision
The most common applications of machine vision are the inspection of manufactured
products in semiconductor production and the automotive industry and in
medical applications.
Machine vision systems are preprogrammed to perform specific tasks such as
classifying objects, detecting certain defects, or reading a bar code.
The applications of machine vision are numerous, ranging from simple
inspection tasks to sophisticated operations. The following are some examples of
machine vision applications:
• Coordinate measurements of large parts
• Safety and hazard applications
• Security
• Large-scale industrial manufacture
• Coordinate measuring machines
• Automated guided vehicles
• Automated manufacturing
• Consumer product control
• Medical imaging processing
• Complex surgical procedures
• Robotics
• Product failure identification
Part II.B.2
X-Ray Inspection
The quality control role played by X-ray systems in the nondestructive testing and
inspection of electronic assemblies—especially today’s printed circuit boards,
densely packed with area array components—is well understood. X-ray imaging
is especially valuable in rapid prototyping and reverse-engineering applications
in electronics, avionics, advanced materials research, casting, and other manufacturing
industries. Unlike machine vision and optical inspection equipment, which
can image only the surface of samples, X-ray systems penetrate substrate materials
to expose hidden features. They are ideal for detecting and evaluating features
in complex micro electromechanical (MEMS) and micro optoelectromechanical
(MOEMS) devices, and for revealing cracks, voids, delamination, and other crucial
component anomalies in prototype electronic assemblies, medical devices, and
castings during preproduction (Rademaker 2005).
Once a need for X-ray inspection has been determined, the user must decide
whether two-dimensional or three-dimensional imaging is best for the particular