Reflectance Map Techniques for Analyzing Surface Defects in Metal Castings

This report explores the relation between image intensity and object shape. It is shown that image intensity is related to surface orientation and that a variation in image intensity is related to surface curvature. Computational methods are developed which use the measured intensity variation across surfaces of smooth objects to determine surface orientation. In general, surface orientation is not determined locally by the intensity value recorded at each image point. Tools are needed to explore the problem of determining surface orientation from image intensity. The notion of gradient space , popularized by Huffman and Mackworth, is used to represent surface orientation. The notion of a reflectance map, originated by Horn, is used to represent the relation between surface orientation image intensity. The image Hessian is defined and used to represent surface curvature. Properties of surface curvature are expressed as constraints on possible surface orientations corresponding to a given image point. Methods are presented which embed assumptions about surface curvature in algorithms for determining surface orientation from the intensities recorded in a single view. If additional images of the same object are obtained by varying the direction of incident illumination, then surface orientation is determined locally by the intensity values recorded at each image point. This fact is exploited in a new technique called photometric stereo. The visual inspection of surface defects in metal castings is considered. Two casting applications are discussed. The first is the precision investment casting of turbine blades and vanes for aircraft jet engines. In this application, grain size is an important process variable. The existing industry standard for estimating the average grain size of metals is implemented and demonstrated on a sample turbine vane. Grain size can be computed form the measurements obtained in an image, once the foreshortening effects of surface curvature are accounted for. The second is the green sand mold casting of shuttle eyes for textile looms. Here, physical constraints inherent to the casting process translate into these constraints, it is necessary to interpret features of intensity as features of object shape. Both applications demonstrate that successful visual inspection requires the ability to interpret observed changes in intensity in the context of surface topography. The theoretical tools developed in this report provide a framework for this interpretation.

SIR: A Computer Program for Semantic Information Retrieval

SIR is a computer system, programmed in the LISP language, which accepts information and answers questions expressed in a restricted form of English. This system demonstrates what can reasonably be called an ability to "understand" semantic information. SIR's semantic and deductive ability is based on the construction of an internal model, which uses word associations and property lists, for the relational information normally conveyed in conversational statements. A format-matching procedure extracts semantic content from English sentences. If an input sentence is declarative, the system adds appropriate information to the model. If an input sentence is a question, the system searches the model until it either finds the answer or determines why it cannot find the answer. In all cases SIR reports its conclusions. The system has some capacity to recognize exceptions to general rules, resolve certain semantic ambiguities, and modify its model structure in order to save computer memory space. Judging from its conversational ability, SIR, is a first step toward intelligent man-machine communication. The author proposes a next step by describing how to construct a more general system which is less complex and yet more powerful than SIR. This proposed system contains a generalized version of the SIR model, a formal logical system called SIR1, and a computer program for testing the truth of SIR1 statements with respect to the generalized model by using partial proof procedures in the predicate calculus. The thesis also describes the formal properties of SIR1 and how they relate to the logical structure of SIR.

Determining the Scope of English Quantifiers

How can one represent the meaning of English sentences in a formal logical notation such that the translation of English into this logical form is simple and general? This report answers this question for a particular kind of meaning, namely quantifier scope, and for a particular part of the translation, namely the syntactic influence on the translation. Rules are presented which predict, for example, that the sentence: Everyone in this room speaks at least two languages. has the quantifier scope AE in standard predicate calculus, while the sentence: At lease two languages are spoken by everyone in this room. has the quantifier scope EA. Three different logical forms are presented, and their translation rules are examined. One of the logical forms is predicate calculus. The translation rules for it were developed by Robert May (May 19 77). The other two logical forms are Skolem form and a simple computer programming language. The translation rules for these two logical forms are new. All three sets of translation rules are shown to be general, in the sense that the same rules express the constraints that syntax imposes on certain other linguistic phenomena. For example, the rules that constrain the translation into Skolem form are shown to constrain definite np anaphora as well. A large body of carefully collected data is presented, and used to assess the empirical accuracy of each of the theories. None of the three theories is vastly superior to the others. However, the report concludes by suggesting that a combination of the two newer theories would have the greatest generality and the highest empirical accuracy.