Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
DOI 10.1007/s00170-007-1326-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A real-time vision system for defect inspection
in cast extrusion manufacturing process
P. Gamage & S. Q. Xie
Received: 20 August 2007 / Accepted: 19 November 2007 / Published online: 11 January 2008
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007
Abstract The cast extrusion manufacturing process is the
initial step which enables the creation of the raw materials,
such as clear polypropylene film, needed for the flexible
packaging printing process. The current methodology of
controlling extrusion-related defect occurrences is attempted
by a combination of statistical sampling and human inspec-
tion. However, due to the fact that the defects are small in
size and hard to visualise in a clear thin film 2 m in width
moving at a speed of 50 m/min. This results in poor product
quality and high return ratio from customers. To the best
of our knowledge, there is no system available that can
accurately detect such defects. This research investigates
possible defect detection methodologies and has sub-
sequently proposed a system that is capable of real-time
monitoring of defects on the cast extrusion manufacturing
process. The proposed system utilises the refraction of a
collimated light source, which is referred to as Mie light
scattering. A vision analysis system is subsequently used to
perform a blob analysis to detect the contrasting dark regions
of the defects. Two test rigs were constructed to test the
feasibility of the system. The first test rig was created to test
the theoretical Mie scattering principles and the performance
of the image analysis software in practice. The second test rig
was created to test the practicability of integrating the Mie
scattering theory on the physical cast extrusion line. The
results obtained from the tests indicated a success rate of
90% in identifying gels and a 100% success rate in correctly
identifying all the die lines presented in the tested samples. It
is also deduced that the software has a capability to detect gel
P. Gamage : S. Q. Xie (*)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand
e-mail: s.xie@auckland.ac.nz
granules with a diameter greater than 480 μm and die lines
with a thickness greater than 320 μm amid complete repeat-
ability, ensuring that the proposed system fully conforms to
the standard industrial requirements.
Keywords Machine vision . Polypropylene film .
Image processing . Machine intelligence
1 Introduction
This research was performed for a company that is a leader
in Australasian flexible food packaging. The company
offers a broad range of flexible film capabilities, including
gravure and flexographic printing, laminated and coated
films, multi layer and extruded films as well as bags,
pouches, ice cream cones, sleeves and lid materials.
Extrusion is the process where solid plastic resin, usually
in the form of beads or pellets, is continuously fed to a heated
chamber and carried along by a feed-screw. As it is conveyed
it is compressed, melted, and forced out of the chamber at a
steady rate through a die. The immediate cooling of the melt
results in re-solidification of that plastic into a continually
drawn piece whose cross-section matches the die pattern.
The cast extrusion line of the company concerned
produces cast polypropylene (CPP) film and biaxial
orientation polypropylene film (BOPP). The current meth-
odology of controlling extrusion-related defect occurrences
is attempted by a combination of statistical sampling and
human inspection. Limitation with the current inspection
system causes rapidly changing process variations to be
missed, and an estimated 0.01% of the product to be tested
to ensure quality standard conformance.
Information obtained from the company indicate that
consequently, undetected defects results in the return of
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
around 2% of goods that were sent to the customer, which
ultimately costs the company around $88,000 per year.
Furthermore, if a continuous defect is only detected at the
end of the run of a roll, then that roll would be unusable
and would create a scraped product. Hence the lack of real-
time monitoring of defects results in 14.8% of scrapped
goods and $550,000 in lost sales per year.
Defects that occur during the cast extrusion process can
be categorised into four main areas: wrinkles, gels, coating
voids and streaks, as shown in Fig. 1. The two mostly
common categories of defects that are targeted by this
project are gels, which are granules of defective polythene
that have not been embedded into the overall structure, and
die lines, which are physical engraved lines through the
web. These account for about 90% of the total defects that
occur during the production process. These defects are
extremely hard to detect due to their small sizes and the
transparency of the material adds to the complexity of the
detection process.
The cast extrusion process operates at a typical web
speed of 50 m/min. According to the current quality stan-
dards, the gel granules are deemed to be unacceptable when
the diameter of the gels are 500 μm and greater. The die
lines require being less than 400 μm in thickness to be
acceptable by current quality standards.
The proposed cast line defect detection system needs to
detect the number, type, size and position of defects, and
help the company in the identification and the quantifica-
tion of defects under the aforementioned industrial guide-
lines. The information can be used for the company to
monitor the cast extrusion process and locate the defects,
and allowing corrective work to be carried out before the
product is delivered. This also helps to better notify their
customers of the state of the product being supplied.
2 Current system and proposed changes
There are currently only two common methods employed to
identify and predict the amount of defects that are present
within a roll of web.
Fig. 1 Typical defects during
the cast extrusion process
145
2.1 Statistical sampling
Controlling extrusion-related defect occurrences is currently
controlled by statistical sampling. A small piece of the film
from the end of each roll is analysed in the lab and the roll is
considered to be acceptable or unacceptable by detecting
defects in the sample utilising a light table. This strategy has
many limitations. The occasional catastrophic defect cannot
be controlled and real-time process improvement is not
possible as many rolls can be produced before the lab results
are analysed. In addition, rapidly changing process variations
are missed, as the lab sample represents only a snapshot in
time equating to as little as 0.01% of the produced product.
By itself, statistical sampling provides a low cost alter-
native to full inspection, but its limitations result in higher
risks with regards to missed catastrophic defects and higher
costs due to reduced process efficiency.
2.2 Human inspection
The next method of controlling defects involves human
inspection. The human inspection system positions one or
more inspectors on the production line to watch for and
flag catastrophic defects. The flagged defects will then be
removed in a subsequent converting process. A significant
limitation of this technique is the human error resulting in
missed defects, inconsistent flagging between inspectors,
and inspector turnover and training issues. The frequency
of missed defects and false positives increase if the defect
contrast is low, when production speeds are high, and if the
inspection field of view is large. In addition, severe injuries
have occurred as a result of an operator placing a flag on
the fast moving web.
Though there is a high cost of labour and a high error
rate associated with human inspection, it is commonly used
for higher value extruded products that have functional
defects. However, it offers no possibilities to acquire data
that can be used to reduce defect occurrences and increase
yield. Thus human inspection has a high cost associated
with labour, lack of process improvement data, and still
pertain the risk of missing catastrophic defects.
146
2.3 Proposed system
The next possible approach of controlling defects involves real-
time automated inspection. This method provides an automatic
on-line inspection system that inspects 100% of the product,
alerting the operator to any catastrophic defects and real-time
process upsets. The operator will then make an assessment as to
flag the defect or a section of the roll and alter process variables.
This objective information can then be used to achieve long-
term process improvements and yield maximisation.
A feasibility study was conducted on radiation density
variation detector, laser scanning systems and vision-based
inspection system. After the feasibility study was conducted
and analysis was performed for the possible approaches, it
was concluded that the radiation density variation detector
and a laser scanning systems proposed to detect defects
would not provide adequate web scanning due to their
small scanning area and slowness respectively [1–3].
Thus the option left to further explore was a vision-based
inspection system. However the downside to this is the
requirement of a high resolution camera to directly inspect
the product to observe the gels and die lines. Hence to
inspect a two-meter-wide web multiple cameras will be
needed which would result in a highly capital intensive
project for the company [4, 5].
It was noted that the light box initially utilised to manually
inspection defects under the statistical sampling process can
produce a viable system in conjunction with a vision analysis
process. The light source from the light box increases the
contrast between the defects and the background web, thus
enabling the defects to be easily distinguishable by human
eye. This property could be utilised by the vision system to
better identify the highly distinguishable defects with a lower
resolution camera resulting in a lower overall cost. It was
understood that a sheet of a homogeneous material that has
variations in density in certain patches will result in a variation
of the refractivity index at those locations. This situation can
be applied to a web of polypropylene with defects, as the
variations in density of the gels and die lines compared to the
actual polypropylene, will create a variation in the refractivity
of those portions of the web. This variation in the refractivity
indexes creates a phenomenon known as Mie scattering,
which creates the increase in the contrast seen between the
defects and the background web. Consequently in order better
understand the concepts behind this phenomenon and to
create a low cost vision inspection system further research was
done into the field of polymer refraction, optical density
variations and Mie scattering.
2.4 Optical Mie scattering
Existing research into Mie scattering is restricted to
mathematical proofs and highly technical derivations.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
Practical understanding in to this field has been primarily
given by two researchers: Bohren and Huffman [6, 7].
2.4.1 Refraction
Refraction is the bending of light as it passes between
materials of different optical density [6]. The optical density
of a material is defined as the index of refraction (n) and
can be expressed as below:
c
n¼ ð1Þ
v
where c is the speed of light in vacuum and v is the speed of
light in the material, both in m/s.
The frequency of light wave, however, does not alter
when it passes from one medium to another in accordance
to the formula [6, 7],
v ¼ lf ð2Þ
where v is the speed of light in the medium in m/s, 1 the
wavelength of the light in the medium in meters and f the
frequency of light wave in the medium in Hertz. Thus
the wavelength of the propagating light wave must change.
The index of refraction can therefore be written in terms of
wavelengths as below [6, 7].
l0
n¼ ð3Þ
l
where 10 is the wavelength of the light in the vacuum and 1
is the wavelength of the light in the medium in meters.
The change in speed and wavelength at the boundary
between the two mediums causes light to change direction
in accordance with Snell’s Law [7]. If θ1 is the angle of the
ray relative to the normal to the surface in medium 1, and
θ2 is the angle relative to the normal in medium 2, then it
can be stated that
sin θ1 11 v1 n2
¼ ¼ ¼ ð4Þ
sin θ2 12 v2 n1
where v1, 11, n1, v2, 12 and n2 are the speed [m/s],
wavelength [m] and optical density in mediums 1 and 2,
respectively.
Thus it is clear from the above derivation that optical
density variations will result in the refraction of the light
sources that are shun onto it. An extension of this
phenomenon is commonly referred to as Mie scattering
and is discussed in the section below [7].
2.4.2 Bohren and Huffman’s research into Mie theory
Bohren and Huffman categorises formal light scattering
theory in terms of two theoretical frameworks. One is the
theory of Rayleigh scattering originally formulated and
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
applicable to small, dielectric (non-absorbing), spherical
particles [7]. The second is the theory of Mie scattering that
encompasses the general spherical scattering solution
(absorbing or non-absorbing) without a particular bound
on particle size [7]. Accordingly, Mie scattering theory has
no size limitations and converges to the limit of geometric
optics for large particles. Mie theory, therefore, may be
used for describing most scattering systems from a plane
where a homogeneous plane contains non-homogeneity
portions of optical density variations, including the scatter-
ing that is observed in our situation.
Mie theory, also called Lorenz–Mie theory is named
after its developers German physicist Gustav Mie and
Danish physicist Ludvig Lorenz who independently devel-
oped the theory of electromagnetic plane wave scattering
by a sphere particles [7]. Mie theory is primarily used in the
area of meteorological optics understanding [7]. Bohren and
Huffman describe Mie theory as the scattering of light by
particles with a refractive index that differs from the refractive
index of its surroundings. This is analogous to what occurs in
a web with defects such as gels and die lines [7].
Iinc (pa) is the intensity of the incident light parallel to the
scattering plane and Iinc (per) is the incident light perpendic-
ular to the scattering plane. Moreover Iref (pa) is the intensity
of the reflected light parallel to the scattering plane and Iref
(per) is the reflected light perpendicular to the scattering
plane. Intensity of light is given in units of Candela.
The theory described by Bohren and Huffman derives a
scattering matrix from the situation depicted in Fig. 2,
which describes the relationship between incident and
scattered light wave components perpendicular and parallel
to the scattering plane. This scattering matrix can be
denoted as
     ms ¼ s s
rs
lref ðpaÞ j S2 j 2 0 IincðpaÞ
¼k ð5Þ
Iref ðperÞ 0 jS1 j2 IincðperÞ
where k is a constant factor that is dependent on the
distance between scattering particle and observer and where
S1 and S2 are the scattering elements necessary for the
computation of the intensity of the light scattering in the
parallel and perpendicular direction to the scattering plane.
The aforementioned intensity of the scattered light along
with the magnitude of refractive index mismatch between
the particle and medium is consequently utilized to cal-
culate a scattering efficiency (QS) [7]. Bohren and Huffman
subsequently derives a relationship between the scattering
efficiency, the particle geometric cross-section and the
cross-section of the scattering shadow cast as below:
s s ¼ Qs As ð6Þ
The size of the scattering shadow cast due to the
refraction is the effective cross-section, σS[m2], which
can be smaller or larger than the geometrical size of
147
Fig. 2 Scattering geometry used for Mie scattering
the scattering particle, AS[m2], related by the dimensionless
scattering efficiency (QS) [6, 7]. The geometric size of the
scattering particle (AS) can be expressed as AS =πr2, where r
is the radius of the defected particle in meters.
However, in a pigment application, where there are
multiple defected particles, the formulation properties
depend on particle volume rather than cross-sectional area.
Therefore, a more meaningful efficiency parameter is the
scattering coefficient per unit length, defined as the
scattering cross-section multiplied by the volume density.
The scattering coefficient, μ [m−1] describes a medium
containing many scattering particles at a concentration
described as a volume density, ρ [m−3]. The scattering
coefficient can be practically thought of as essentially the
cross-sectional area per unit volume of medium.
ð7Þ
4 
Since rs ¼ 3 1
3 pr for a sphere, Eq. (7) can be
rewritten as
3
ms ¼ s s
ð8Þ
4pr3
Since Eq. (6) defines σS =QS AS =QS ×pr2, Eq. (8) can
be rewritten in terms of the scattering efficiency to
represent
3Qs
ms ¼ ð9Þ
4r
Subsequently, Bohren and Huffman utilise the scattering
coefficient calculated from Eq. (9) to derive an equation for
the intensity of the scattered light for each varying angles in
the scattering plane:
IS ¼ 0:75
ð1  cosqÞ
ms ð10Þ
where IS is the intensity of the scattered light parallel to the
scattering plane in candela and θ the angle of interest
148
measured from the maximum scattered light intensity in the
scattering plane.
2.4.3 Practical understanding of the theory
It has been necessary to grasp a practical understanding to
the light scattering, Mie theory, in order to develop a test rig
to test the practical viability of it. Mie theory practically
indicates that when a homogeneous material with the same
optical density or refractivity index contains portions of non
homogeneity with varying optical densities then light
scattering will occur around these particles (Fig. 3).
This theory can, thus, be extended to the situation
presented where defects such as gels and die lines on
polypropylene have to be detected. In a homogeneous
polypropylene web the aforementioned defects will have
optical density variations to that of the overall polypro-
pylene [8–11]. Thus refractive index of the defects differs
from the refractive index of its surroundings.
This refractivity index mismatch will create light
scattering in the polypropylene film; thus, a shadow will
be cast with an effective cross-section that is linked linearly
to that of the actual geometric cross-section of the defect as
described by Eqs. (6) and (10).
3 Development of the first test rig
3.1 Test rig design
A test rig was developed as shown in Fig. 4 to test the
viability of the theory put forth by Bohren and Huffman on
Fig. 3 Formation of the shadow
due to the Mie scattering of the
light waves around the defect
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
Mie scattering. The test rig incorporates an IEEE 1394
Marlin F080C camera, a lighting system and a PC with an
IEEE 1394 image acquisition card.
The collimated light source that is required for the Mie
light scattering phenomena is generated through a series of
Phillips Sylvania halogen spot lamps. These bulbs have a
beam angle of 8 degrees and were the best option we were
able to harness to achieve the collimated lighting required.
Moreover, Fig. 5 shows the positioning of the sample
polypropylene web with the gels and die lines, the screen
onto which the shadows cast by the scattered light around
the defects is projected, the camera and the light source.
3.2 Developed LabVIEW software
The defect detection software was developed with the aid of
the NI vision development suite. In particular NI vision
assistant was utilised alongside LabVIEW to create the
necessary software to detect the shadows of the defects cast
onto the screen.
The basic category of vision processing involved with
the detecting contrasting dark spots from a light back-
ground is referred to as blob analysis. Blobs are a group
of contiguous pixels that have the same intensity which
would be caused due to the shadow cast from the defects.
The image processing steps operate on these blobs to
calculate the area, perimeter, and to count the number of
distinguishable blobs. Before blob analysis can be applied
the image must be preprocessed by converting the gray
scale image (an image with 256 levels) to an image with
only two gray scales, zeros and ones. The objective is to
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156 149

Fig. 4 The prototype test rig

system

separate the important objects, blobs, from the unimpor- binary image which is an image of pixel values of only
tant information, background. A technique called thresh- ones and zeros. The blobs are represented by the
olding appropriately separates the blobs from the connected pixels of ones, and the background is repre-
background. The result of the thresholding process is a sented by the zeros.

Fig. 5 Schematic of the test rig

150 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156

The binarising stage ensures that all other image
processing steps can now be performed much easily. Thus
the area of a blob or practically the area of the defect can be
found by counting the pixels with values of one that are
connected. Each of the image processing steps that follow
the preprocessing of the image is discussed in the section
overleaf.
The steps required for real-time image processing steps
to identify defects include:
1 Acquiring the image
Acquiring the image through the
NI 8252 Image Grabber FireWire
interface device. The Allied Vision
Marlin F080C IEEE 1394 camera
is utilised for the image acquisitions
2 Smoothing filter – to eliminate pixilation
A smoothing filter attenuates
the variations of light intensity
in the neighborhood of a pixel.
It smooths the overall shape of
objects, and removes noise [14]
6 Advanced morphology label objects - to count cells
The labeling function assigns a different gray-
level value to each particle. The image
produced is not a binary image, but a labeled
image using a number of gray-level values
equal to the number of particles in the image
plus the gray level 0 used in the background
area [14]
7 Particle analysis – to detect and analyse shapes in the image
Particle analysis is used to detect connected
regions or groupings of pixels in an image and
then makes selected measurements of those
regions. These regions are commonly referred
to as particles. A particle is a contiguous
region of nonzero pixels. Zero valued pixels
are in the background state, and all nonzero
valued pixels are in the foreground. Particle
analysis results in a series of processing
operations and analysis functions that produce
information about particles in an image [14]
8 Binary particle classification – to identify
and count gels, die lines and contaminants
Binary particle classification identifies an
unknown binary sample by comparing a
set of its significant features to a set of
features that conceptually represent classes
of known samples [12]. Classification
involves two phases: training and classifying

3 Histographing - to identify the threshold values

9 Grayscale morphology dilate – to extract the shape
A histograph of an image gives the
of the defected region
frequency (count) of the number of
A gray-level dilation increases the
pixels per gray level value. It provides
brightness of each pixel that is surrounded
a general description of the appearance
by neighbors with a higher intensity. This
of an image and helps identify its various
highlights the detected defects
components, such as the background,
blobs, and noise [14]. This step does
not manipulate the image in any way
4 Advanced morphology remove small objects -
to remove noise of the image
The lowpass filter removes small
particles according to their widths 3.3 Test rig experimentation
as specified by a parameter called
filter size. For a given filter size N,
The testing phase involved with the first test rig was
the lowpass filter eliminates particles
whose widths are less than or equal utilised to measure three important key performance
to (N – 1) pixels. These particles indicators associated with the project performance:
disappear after (N – 1)/2 erosions [14]
– The smallest gel granule diameter detectable by the
5 Manual threshold - to create a binary image
Thresholding consists of segmenting
developed software
an image into two regions: a particle – The smallest die line thickness detectable by developed
region and a background region. This software
process works by setting to 1 all pixels – Repeatability of the software to have consistent defect
that belong to a gray-level interval, detection
called the threshold interval, and setting
all other pixels in the image to 0. Ten sample test slides with known defects were utilised
Thresholding is used to isolate the in the testing phase These samples had both gels and die
objects of interest in the image [14] lines on them to test the software to the full requirement of
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156 151

the project. Five samples contained gel granules ranging Table 2 Success rates of gel identification
from 300 – 800 μm in diameter and the other five contained Sample ID Number of Number of Percentage Average gel
die lines of thickness ranged from 200 to 500 μm. The gel granules gel granules of gels diameter (to
samples had a total of 28 gel defects and 16 die lines present detected detected the nearest
Table 1. 10 μm)
The developed software in conjunction with the Marlin
1 6 4 67% 210
F080C camera was next utilised to ensure that the software
2 6 5 83% 350
is able to process and identify the extreme cases of defects 3 5 5 100% 480
present in the samples being tested. The LabVIEW software 4 6 6 100% 680
was controlled manually and engaged to process one image 5 5 5 100% 770
acquisitions at a time. One sample was tested ten times to Average detection rate 90%
verify the consistent repeatability of the software.
The images acquired during the testing phase were
limited to greyscale images with a resolution of 800 by 600 assured for gels that are larger than this in size. Furthermore
pixels. This was done intentionally to validate the ability of due to the 100% success rate in detecting die lines, die lines
a low resolution camera being able to perform the necessary that are greater than 320 μm can be completely identified
image acquisitions to adequate standards to avoid the high by the developed software.
costs involved with a higher resolution camera. The
concept behind the development of this refraction-based 3.5 Discussion
detection technology is the ability for a clear film defect
detection to take place without the need for high resolution The results achieved above have confirmed the perfor-
cameras that consequently bring associated higher costs. mance of the system to the specification required by the
company. Thus the effects of Mie scattering on the gel
3.4 Results particles and the die lines have resulted in a highly
contrasting image being projected onto the screen which
The software was able to correctly identify and classify 25 was easily identified by the blob analysis performed
of the 28 gels, thus correctly identifying 90% of the gels through the LabVIEW software.
present in the samples (Table 2). Moreover the software The experiment identified the point at which a 100%
was able to correctly identify all the die lines present in the success rate in the detection was identified as being at
sample slides; thus, 100% of the die lines were successfully 480 μm. Nonetheless, more extensive testing would
identified and classified (Table 3). definitely be required to confirm this finding. The sample
It is also evident from the test performed that the utilised with the average gel diameter of 480 μm (Sample
software was able to successfully identify and classify gel ID 3) would have contained gel diameter ranging from
granules of sizes from 480 μm. The software only had an 530 μm to 430 μm (480±10%). This is attributed to the
83% success rate detecting gels with diameter of 350 μm fact that not every defect in the test sample was exactly the
and a 67% success rate at detecting gels with a diameter of averaged size of 480 μm.
210 μm (Table 2). Thus it could be deduced that even Hence further testing on individually sized gels would be
though the software has a capability to detect gels that are required to confirm the point at which 100% gel detection
smaller than 480 μm, complete defect detection can only be is possible. Nevertheless the success of the software to fully

Table 1 Average size of defects in the samples Table 3 Success rates of die line identification

Sample Number Average gel Sample Number Average die Sample Number of Number of Percentage of Average die line
ID of gel diameter (to ID of die line thickness ID die lines die lines die lines thickness (to the
granules the nearest lines (to the nearest present detected detected nearest 10 μm)
present 10 μm) present 10 μm)
6 3 3 100% 320
1 6 210 6 3 360 7 4 4 100% 380
2 6 350 7 4 380 8 2 2 100% 420
3 5 480 8 2 420 9 3 3 100% 460
4 6 680 9 3 460 10 4 4 100% 480
5 5 770 10 4 480 Average detection rate 100%
152
identify gels of sizes 480 μm and above fully comply with
the quality standards required, which deems gels smaller
than 500 μm as acceptable and those above as not passing
quality control standards.
An interesting identification made during the experiment
is that the software was able to fully detect and identify the
die lines present in the samples. Likewise interesting is
the a 100% success rate at identifying die lines of thick-
ness 320 μm, while only identifying 83% of the gels of
360 μm. Both these facts are attributed to the advanced
morphological analysis performed on the image to remove
small objects. This low pass filter would have identified
some smaller sized gels to be unwanted noise in the image
and eliminated them on to the background (a binary 0). The
die lines which have a longer length compared to a typical
gel granule would have been exempted from this filter. It is,
however, undesirable to completely eliminate the filter as it
would then identify small specks of objects in the image as
defects when in reality they are simply image noise.
The repeatability seen amongst the die lines can also be
attributed to the aforementioned reason. The repeatability
seen within gel granules have definitely increased as the gel
diameter gets larger and from 480 μm has a reasonable
repeatability. This once more is ideal for the quality control
practices, as they consider only gels larger than 500 μm as
notable defects that require rectification.
Thus it can be noted that the image analysis steps
developed through NI vision development module were
indeed successful in identifying and classifying all tested
die lines and all gel granules of diameter 480 μm and above
and all die lines 320 μm and above, with complete
repeatability. This complies with the specifications set forth
as the limiting criteria for defects.
Fig. 6 The second test rig
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
4 Development of the second test rig
4.1 Test rig design
The second test rig created (Fig. 6) has the primary purpose
of emulating the actual machine and the practical con-
straints placed by the actual cast extrusion line. It involves a
DC motor driven web that has the ability to loop through
the machine at a maximum speed of 1 m/s, which is above
the speed the system will experience on the physical cast
line of about 0.8 m/s (50 m/min). The maximum web width
that is possible to drive through the test rig is 250 mm,
which is a scale factor reduction by a factor of eight, of
the maximum web width possible on the cast extrusion
line of 2 m.
Two systems were created to mount the camera above
the moving web. The first is a simple H–frame, which
mounts the camera 650 mm above the web, ensuring that
the camera captures the whole width of the web. Thus the
camera will have a capture area of 250 mm by 250 mm.
The second mounting system utilises a lead screw travers-
ing system to move the camera perpendicular to the
direction of the movement of the web, which is also
currently illustrated on the test rig shown in Fig. 6.
4.2 Test rig 2 – design considerations
The second test rig was developed with the mindset to
closely emulate the real production process. Hence several
design concerns had to be considered before a final test rig
could be designed. These considerations include the
number of cameras to be used, positioning of the cameras
on the machine and the additional information needed by
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
the operator to signify the defect. Moreover the work
involved during the acquisition and merging of the
necessary hardware and software during the implementa-
tion process was also given consideration in the design of
the test rig and the associated software.
The practical considerations made prior to the design and
construction of the test rig are noted below.
4.2.1 Number of cameras
Due to the large web width of 2 m produced at the
extrusion cast lines, it is impractical to design a system with
a single camera that is able to analyse the whole web while
in a stationary pose. There are two types of camera tech-
nology being used for inspection in industry: area scan and
line scan [13, 14].
Area scan camera systems inspect one area (field of
view) in each image. A single camera acquires and
processes a new image every preset interval as it traverses
across the web [14]. As web width and repeat length get
larger, the time required to inspect the entire repeat area
gets longer. This can be reduced significantly with the use
of a very large field of view, but doing so requires a much
higher resolution camera sufficient to provide the necessary
detail [14].
Line scan camera systems scan across the web in one
long line utilising multiple cameras. For high quality inspec-
tion, one camera is typically used for about every 200 mm of
web width [14]. The camera resolution is fixed, so as a
single camera is used for wider web widths, the result is a
lower cross web resolution. As web width increases so does
cost, primarily because additional cameras are needed to
yield sufficient cross web resolution [14].
In order to make an assessment on the possible system to
be chosen the nature and frequency of the defects that occur
at the cast extrusion process was closely considered. It was
deduced that defects such as gels and die lines commonly
occur throughout the whole width of the web and not
merely in isolated portions of the web width. This is
attributed to the type of extrusion process that occurs at the
machine where there is only one input for plastic granules
which are conveyed forward by one rotating heated screw.
This one inlet implies that all defects that occur on
extrusion process will occur in batches, spread consistently
throughout the web width. Consequently an area scan
camera setup will provide adequate coverage during periods
of defect generation Fig. 7.
4.2.2 User interface
Consideration was also given to improve and enhance the
user interface in order to closely emulate practical needs of
153
Fig. 7 Traversing lead screw camera mounting
the machine operator. The following items were brain-
stormed to be included in the final user interface:
– Having the acquired image and the LabVIEW processed
image side by side to ensure that no defects have been
missed out or that unnecessary defects have been
classified as defects.
– Having a defect detection ON/OFF button to accom-
modate the machine setup stage spent by the operator
when the defect detection is not needed.
– Having a real-time feedback of the percentage of defects
to ensure that the operator sees the benefits or drawback
of changing the process parameters while trying to
rectify a problem.
– Having a feedback on the type of the majority of the
defects (gels / die lines) noted by the analysing software
so as to allow the operator to plan the necessary action
to mitigate the defects. If the alarm condition is related
to gels, temperature adjustments can be made. If the
defect alarm is a result of die lines, the melt filters and
dies are changed.
– Having a scale where the operator is able to set the
acceptable percentage of defects and an alarm that
notifies the operator when the current percentage of
defects has exceeded that acceptable limit.
– Feedback on the position, in terms of the length wise
placement in the roll of web, where the defects have
occurred.
– A sensitivity gauge to adjust the sensitivity of the detec-
tion to adapt to varying ambient lighting conditions.
4.3 Developed LabVIEW software
The developed LabVIEW software for the second test rig
incorporated the same image analysis steps as that of the
previous test rig; however, a front panel user interface was
154
developed through the use of LabVIEW to the criteria
identified after the brainstorming session.
The final version of the developed user interface is
shown in Fig. 8. The user interface contains an image box
to display the analysed image which is the end product of
the image processing steps. Furthermore a popup window
displays the acquired image direct form the camera. The
user input section contains a slider for the user to enter the
desired acceptable level of defects as a percentage and
defect detection on button to start the defect detection
process.
The defect detection feedback section contains a real-
time graph that displays the current level of defects as it
occurs. Also an LED alarm lights up red when the detected
defects are greater in percentage that the preset acceptable
level of defects by the user.
A sensitivity gauge was also introduced into the user
interface to ensure that the operator has the ability to alter
the manual threshold limits. Thus the sensitivity of the
detection alters the proportions of the image into that is
considered as defect particle region and the background
region. This will provide great flexibility in terms of
Fig. 8 User interface developed
for the second test rig
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
providing the ability for the software to be utilised in
varying ambient lighting conditions.
4.4 Test rig experimentation
The two testing phases involved with the second test rig was
utilised to further measure three important key performance
indicators associated with the project performance:
– The maximum speed to which successful image
acquisitions/processing can occur
– The maximum frequency of image processing possible
by the developed software
– The relationship between traversing speed camera
height and possible scan percentage
For the testing phase of the second test rig, a roll of
known defects were provided. These rolls are used
internally for cast line operator training in defect identifi-
cation by human eye. The test roll that was utilised in the
testing contained a total of 51 gel defects, 29 die lines
and 15 other imperfections throughout the whole web of
12 meters.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156 155

The first experiment was performed with the camera
stationary on the specially constructed ‘H’ frame which
held the camera 650 mm above the screen surface. This
ensured that the whole web was visible by the camera.
The second experiment was performed with both the web
and the camera moving perpendicular to each other. For this
the special camera mount with the traversing camera was
utilised. The traversing speed was set to 0.1 m/s.
Each of the aforementioned experiments were conducted
three times each for web speeds of 0.1 m/s, 0.25 m/s and
0.5 m/s. In order to ensure that the image acquisitions were
exactly synchronised with the speed of the web the roll was
perforated along the width of the web at intervals of
250 mm which provided the basis for a testing sample
frame. Moreover while threading the web through the test
rig extra care was taken to ensure that the camera is
correctly aligned with the perforated edge and that it was
able to process the whole perforated section. Moreover, to
further ensure that camera scans one perforated section at a
time, the image acquisitions frequency was restricted to be
0.4 Hz for 0.1 m/s, 1 Hz for 0.25 m/s and 2 Hz for 0.5 m/s.
The LabVIEW software was continuously run for both
of the tests until the roll was completely analysed. Once
more the images acquired during the testing phase were
limited to greyscale images with a resolution of 800 pixels
by 600 pixels in order to validate the ability of a low
resolution camera being able to perform the necessary
image acquisitions to avoid the high costs involved with a
higher resolution camera.
4.5 Results
The percentage of defects detected and categorised by the
software is shown in Table 4. There is a definite drop in the
Table 4 Success rate (%) of the software for a stationary camera
Web speed Defect type Camera Camera
(m/s) stationary traversing
success rate of the defect detection as the web speed
increases, as noted by the drop in the number of defects
detected for all three categories of defects.
A special note, however, must be mentioned about the
defects categorised as “Other defects” which are typically
contaminants, including carbon specks, dirt and insects.
The detection and, more specifically, categorisation of these
defects are extremely hard for the software due to their
varying shapes and sizes. Thus the shape categorisation
training that was performed to detect gels and die lines
cannot be performed to the same degree of efficiency on the
rest of the miscellaneous defects due to their non
uniformity. Thus even though the software did recognise
them as defects it would not have classified them to be
“Other defects” due to the lack of resemblance to the
trained set of shapes under that category. Thus in actuality
the percentage success rate for the defects should in fact be
close to that of gels and die lines.
Moreover, the second column in Table 4 containing the
data acquired while the camera was traversing across the
web were deemed to be scientifically unsound as an
approximation on the percentage of the web that was
scanned had to be made in order to calculate the percentage
of the defects missed by the camera.
4.6 Discussion
The tests performed on the second test rig were conducted
with the mindset to closely emulate the requirements of the
real production process. The first stage of the testing
conducted with the camera mounted on the “H” frame
conveyed that the speed of web has an inverse relationship
between the percentages of successful detections.
The statistics of the contaminant defects (“Other
defects”) in Table 4, that were not gels or die lines are
undervalued due to the difficulties faced by the software to
categorise them. Thus these statistics were not considered
in the evaluation of the software success rate.

0.1 Percentage of gels detected 98% 98%

Percentage of die lines 100% 100%
detected
Percentage of other defects 80% 76%
detected
0.25 Percentage of gels detected 95% 94%
Percentage of die lines 100% 98%
detected
Percentage of other defects 76% 71%
detected
0.5 Percentage of gels detected 93% 91%
Percentage of die lines 96% 95%
detected
Percentage of other defects 60% 53%
detected Fig. 9 Percentage defects against web speeds for gels and die lines
(while the camera was stationary)
156
Figure 9 plots the interpolated data of the success rates
of defect detection against the web speeds of the data
acquired from Table 4. The plot illustrates that the
percentage of successful defect detection is 87% for gels
as the web travels at the actual cast line speed of 0.8 m/s.
Moreover for the same web speed the die line defect
detection success rate is 94%. However, the results shown
in Table 4 were obtained under conditions where the two
top rollers of the test rig that ran the web began to vibrate
as speeds reached up to 0.5 m/s. This vibration affected
the quality of the web that was driven through the light
source and the projection screen as the web itself began
to vibrate and flutter slowly. These imperfections are,
however, inherent in a real production environment; thus,
these vibrations were taken on as part of the practical
experimentation.
Moreover, the deduction that the maximum frequency of
image processing is 3 Hz imposes a limiting factor on the
speed of the web. The maximum speed the web can travel
is limited to 0.75 m/s, if the current Marlin camera is
utilised with the 0.25 m image width. This, however, is not
a highly contrastive factor as a better camera with either a
wider area of acquisition or faster frame rate can be utilised
in the final design, eliminating this limiting factor on the
speed of the web.
Furthermore, the relationship between the traversing
speed camera height and possible scan percentage was also
investigated for the situation tested with the lead screw
camera mounting. It indicates a scan percentage of 50% for
the traversing speed of 0.1 m/s and camera height of 0.3 m.
This software created is a flexible tool than can be utilised
prior to the design of the any further traversing systems to
identify the traversing speeds and the camera heights
required to obtain the necessary scan percentage.
5 Conclusions
After the feasibility study was conducted and experiments
were performed for the four systems, it was concluded
that a vision-based system would provide the flexibility of
expansion and the speed of operation necessary for success-
ful defect detection.
A real-time vision-based defect inspection system was
proposed utilising the theory referred to as Mie scattering in
conjunction with an image analysis system detecting the
defect regions in the web. A unique method for setting up a
proper lighting environment-based on the Mie scattering
theory was also proposed and tested.
The first rig created to test the theoretical Mie scattering
principles and the performance of the image analysis
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2009) 40:144–156
software in practice had a success rate of 90% in identifying
gels present in the samples and a 100% success rate in
correctly identify all the die lines present in the sample
slides. Moreover it was also deduced that the software has a
capability to detect gels that are with a diameter greater
than 480 μm and die lines with a thickness greater than
320 μm with complete repeatability.
The second test rig developed to test the practicality of
integrating the Mie scattering theory on the physical cast
extrusion line deduced that the percentage of successful
defect detection is 87% for gels as the web travels at the
actual cast line speed of 0.8 m/s. Moreover for the same
web speed the die line defect detection success rate is 94%.
Moreover it was further noted that the newly created user
interface and LabVIEW software has an image processing
frequency of 3 Hz imposing a limiting factor on the speed
of the web of 0.75 m/s.
The test results showed that the proposed system
performed under the full provisions provided by the
company limited in detecting all gel defects greater than
500 μm in diameter and die lines in 400 μm in thickness,
with full repeatability and a 100% detection success rate,
while the machine operates at a speed of 50 m/min.
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