Scene reconstruction by assembling images

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10841489-B2
Application number	US-201615543998-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 11, 2016
Priority date	Jan 16, 2015
Publication date	Nov 17, 2020
Grant date	Nov 17, 2020

Abstract

A method for inspecting a surface (12) of a piece of nuclear power plant equipment includes scanning the surface (12) with an acquisition field (20) of a matrix array camera (14). The acquisition field (20) moves relative to the surface (12) at a movement speed. The method also includes acquiring, by means of the matrix array camera (14), an image (22) of the acquisition field (20), with a certain acquisition frequency. Each image (22) includes a first number of lines of pixels. The method also includes extracting, from each image (22), a first set of lines, the first set comprising a second number of continuous lines of pixels, the second number being between 2 and the first number; and constituting a final image (32) of the surface (12) by juxtaposing the lines extracted from each image (22). The movement speed, the acquisition frequency, the first number of lines and the second number of lines are chosen such that the final image (32) covers the entire surface (12) without interruption.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for inspecting a surface of a piece of nuclear power plant equipment, the method comprising the following steps:
scanning the surface with an acquisition field of a matrix array camera, the acquisition field moving relative to the surface at a movement speed;
acquiring, by the matrix array camera, an image of the acquisition field, with a certain acquisition frequency, each image including a first number of lines of pixels acquired at once;
extracting, from each image, a first set of lines, the first set comprising a second number of continuous lines of pixels, the second number being between 2 and the first number;
constituting a final image of the surface by juxtaposing, without overlapping, the lines extracted from each image, the movement speed, the acquisition frequency, the first number of lines and the second number of lines being chosen such that the final image covers an entirety of the surface without interruption;
extracting, from each image, a second set of lines, the second set comprising a third number of continuous lines of pixels, such that the lines of the second set are different from the lines of the first set; and
constituting a second final image of the surface by juxtaposing the second sets of lines extracted from each image.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein each pixel has a height h, the movement speed v, the acquisition frequency f, the height h and the second number of lines n being such that

n
=

v

f
*
h

.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises searching for indications present on the surface in the final image of the surface.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein during the method, the acquisition field moves relative to the nuclear power plant, such that the surface to be inspected is immobile relative to the nuclear power plant.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the extracted lines are adjacent.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the third number of lines is comprised between 2 and the first number of lines.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the acquisition frequency is comprised between 0.1 Hz and 10 kHz.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the acquisition field of the camera moves relative to the surface to be analyzed at a speed comprised between 0.1 and 2 mm/s.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the acquisition field of the camera moves:
from top to bottom relative to the surface to be analyzed with image acquisition,
once at the bottom of the surface, to the left or to the right without image acquisition,
then from bottom to top to the top of the surface to be analyzed with image acquisition,
then to the same side as before without image acquisition,
the method being reiterated until the entire surface to be analyzed has been acquired.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the acquisition field of the camera moves:
from top to bottom relative to the surface to be analyzed with image acquisition,
and once at the bottom of the surface, from bottom to top up to the top of the surface to be analyzed without image acquisition and to the left or to the right,
the method being reiterated until the entire surface to be analyzed has been acquired.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the surface to be analyzed is the inside and/or the outside of the vessel bottom penetrations of a steam generator, the coating of the vessel, the cover of the vessel or any other pressurized nuclear power plant equipment, during a manufacture or a maintenance thereof.

12. The method according to claim 1 wherein the second number of continuous lines of pixels is less than the first number of lines of pixels.

Assignees

• Areva Np

Inventors

• Taglione Matthieu

Classifications

• H04N1/3876 Primary

  Recombination of partial images to recreate the original image · CPC title

• H04N23/698 Primary

  for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture · CPC title

• Y02E30/30

  Nuclear fission reactors · CPC title

• G01N21/8851

  Scan or image signal processing specially adapted therefor, e.g. for scan signal adjustment, for detecting different kinds of defects, for compensating for structures, markings, edges (G01N21/8806 and G01N21/93 - G01N21/95692 take precedence; optical measurement of dimensions G01B11/00; optical scanning G02B26/10; image transformation G06T3/00; computerised image enhancement G06T5/00; image processing per se for flaw detection G06T7/0002) · CPC title

• G06T11/60

  Creating or editing images; Combining images with text · CPC title