Abstract: In an example, a light system is provided that allows for increased reliability in directly detecting defects in components by capturing multiple different images of the component under different lighting conditions and using a photometric stereo technique to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) model of the component, which can be used to perform additional operations to increase the reliability of defect detection, such as measuring the height of variations in a surface of the component.

Abstract: In an example, a light system is provided that allows for increased reliability in directly detecting defects in components by capturing multiple different images of the component under different lighting conditions and using a photometric stereo technique to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) model of the component, which can be used to perform additional operations to increase the reliability of defect detection, such as measuring the height of variations in a surface of the component.

Abstract: In an example embodiment, a uniform filtering technique is applied using photometric stereo to reduce or eliminate global defects in a scanned component. An image is taken of a component using a photometric stereo technique. A uniform filter then, for every point in the component, takes an average of heights of the points near it. This essentially “blurs” the image. The blurring may be repeated multiple times. The blurred image may then be subtracted from the original image, essentially flattening out the image in a manner that reduces or eliminated global inaccuracies. The post-filtered image can then be used for defect detection, with that defect detection being more accurate because of the reduction of the global inaccuracies.