Visual Evidence Accumulation in Radiograph Inspection

Image features pertinent to weld defect detection and identification are extracted from a digitised radiograph image of the weld. These image features form the set of visual evidence which is brought to bear upon a set of possible defect hypotheses. The Dempster-Shafer theory is applied to combine these visual evidence and obtain a belief interval for each of the defect hypotheses. The system is capable of assessing the validity of the result of the identification by considering the degree of conflict in the body of the evidence.