Technical areas to assess – logic

Last post on how to grill an integrator:

Now that you’ve explored lighting and resolution, ask what logic the system will use to determine if there is any bad 'stuff' in the image. You don’t need to know how the algorithms work, you’re just interested in finding out how your images are processed.

They should be able to take you through pre-processing (cleaning up the image to remove noise,) and then edge detection or binarization and blob detection. Those are the main tools, although some folks like pattern-matching methods.

Be cautious though if you are told that the approach is subtraction from a golden template. While this can sound plausible, ask how the golden template is selected, and think about how much variation you could normally expect from that particular part.

Bottom line: If the integrator can't explain the algorithm to a competent technical person like you, then they probably don't understand it either. And if they don’t understand what they’re doing, run for door!