Patent ID: 7276380

Claim:
A transparent liquid inspection apparatus, comprising: a base material having a multiplicity of section pieces placed in predetermined locations, each section piece having applied thereto a transparent liquid capable of surface expansion; illuminating means having a predetermined shape, for illuminating a surface of the base material so that the shape is projected on the surface of the transparent liquid in each section piece, the projected shape of said illuminating means having a plurality of tips; image pickup means for picking up an image of the surface of the base material and transmitting the image of a predetermined number of section pieces of said base material applied with the transparent liquid; means for calculating, based on the image transmitted from said image pickup means, a luminance component in a plurality of locations in each section piece, each location being defined by a cursor for performing histogram processing and comprising an area to be transmitted as an image, the location comprising a part of a boundary of the transparent liquid applied at a predetermined application position thereof in each section piece and including one of the tips of the projected shape of the illuminating means on the surface of the transparent liquid in each section piece, wherein the luminance component is calculated by measuring a first luminance of the illuminated base material located in the cursor and a second luminance of a tip of the projected share on the surface of the transparent liquid located in the cursor; means for calculating, based on the calculated luminance component, the surface expansion of the transparent liquid in each section piece; and means for statistically processing data on the surface expansion of the transparent liquid in the predetermined number of section pieces to calculate an amount of displacement of the transparent liquid from the predetermined application position thereof in each section piece.