Other

General Electric Company

University of Pittsburgh

John M Herron

David Gur

Robert H Pedersen

Walter F Good

Glenn S Maitz

A noncontacting method of inspecting a transparent article in order to determine the thickness thereof including: directing a light beam having generally parallel rays onto a first point of the exterior surface of the article, directing reflected light from the first portion onto a first sensor, establishing relative movement between the light beam and the article to a second point where the light refracted into the article is directed out of the first point and onto the first sensor, and employing the reflected and refracted light to determine wall thickness of the article. The method may be repeated a plurality of times in order to determine wall thickness of the article at a number of locations. The angle of the wall being inspected is preferably determined in order to enhance the accuracy of the wall thickness determination. The apparatus of the present invention includes a light source, a first sensor for receiving light reflected from a first point on the exterior surface of the article and converting the light into a corresponding electrical signal. A first sensor also receives light entering at a second point, refracted into the article and reflected from the rear surface of the article through the same first point and converts that refracted light into a corresponding electrical signal and processor means are provided for converting the reflected and refracted light, and the relative beam movement into a determination of wall thickness at the first point. A measurement based on the angles of the wall at the first point and the second point is determined in order to enhance accuracy of the thickness determination.

Noncontacting optical method for determining thickness and related apparatus

A method and system for remote diagnosis of a radiograph includes remote locations connectable to diagnosis locations. At a remote location a radiographic image containing a part depicting tissue and a background part is obtained and digitized. The image can be considered to comprise a plurality of blocks. A block of the digitized radiographic image is segmented to obtain a part of the block which depicts mainly tissue. The part of the block is compressed and transmitted to a diagnosis location. This segmenting, compressing and transmitting of blocks is repeated until the entire part of the image which depicts tissue has been transmitted to the diagnosis location. For an image, the digitization, segmentation, compression and transmission can be performed in a pipelined fashion. optionally computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) can be performed on the digitized image. The diagnosis location receives the compressed segmented image and any CAD results; uncompressing the received image; combining the CAD results with the uncompressed image; and displays the uncompressed image and the CAD results.

Image facsimile with real time image segmentation

Apparatus for measuring xenon concentration in xenon cerebral blood-flow studies operates under the control of a microprocessor which is used to monitor the patient's breathing cycle and to control a sampling pump in order to assure that only end-tidal gas is sampled. A xenon gas mixture is delivered to a patient by means of a mask assembly. At the end of each exhale cycle, the patient's end-tidal gas is held in a chamber on the exhale side of the mask assembly. At the start of the next inhale cycle, the microprocessor activates the sampling pump which draws end-tidal gas into a thermal conductivity detector. The output of the detector is transmitted through an A/D converter and the resultant value stored in the microprocessor memory along with the time of the sample. At the completion of a CT scan series, the accumulated data in the microprocessor is transferred to the CT-system-housed computer to be used in the reconstruction of cerebral blood-flow images using conventional techniques.

Growing community of inventors

Gibsonia, PA, United States of America

John M Herron