Image processing of light-scattering images for the qualitative surface analysis

Light scattering analysis is already used for roughness measurements, but it is also possible to determine defects on surfaces with this method. Therefore, the scattering distribution is recorded and analyzed using image processing. The defects lead to specific characteristics in the images, which can be assigned to them. In this process the segmentation has an important role because only the best possible separation of the error characteristic leads to good results in the further steps of the image processing chain and in the classification process. For this reason, various segmentation methods were applied to two datasets of images of the scattering distributions and their quality was evaluated by means of the obtained recognition rates. © 2016, IMEKO-International Measurement Federation Secretariat.