Abstract: Small pieces of foreign matter on the surface of a cake such as freeze-dried preparations in a vial are detected as distinguished from cake surface irregularities including cake collapses and cracks that should be passed as being acceptable. The cake is imaged by a CCD camera or the like to produce an image signal representing an image of the cake. The level of an image signal which is higher than a predetermined upper limit is set to the upper limit and the level of an image signal which is lower than a predetermined lower limit is set to the lower limit. At least three pixel points, which include a point of interest and surrounding points one on each side of the point of interest, in an inspected region of the image are compared, and the point of interest is judged as being an abnormal point if the point of interest is brighter or darker than the surrounding points.

Abstract: A container inspecting apparatus for inspecting containers such as vials, ampuls, or the like has an inlet star wheel rotatable for admitting containers successively, and an outlet star wheel rotatable for discharging the containers successively. A plurality of feed units are movable along a circular path for successively receiving containers from the inlet star wheel, stopping the containers in respective inspecting positions, and successively transferring the containers to the outlet star wheel. A plurality of inspecting devices, each comprising an illuminating unit and an imaging unit, are disposed respectively in the inspecting positions for inspecting the containers in the respective inspecting positions. The feed units are intermittently moved along the circular path by a feeding and indexing device. A support mechanism is vertically mounted on each of the feed units for supporting bottoms of the containers on the feed units.