Patent ID: 8731333

Claim:
An apparatus to inspect a region of interest for structure hidden by a surface therein, the apparatus comprising: a moveable housing configured to be translated over the surface along a scan trajectory; at least one sensor mechanically attached to the housing and configured to generate at least one characteristic signal indicative of a corresponding at least one structural characteristic of the region of interest at a location of the housing on the surface therein of and to generate a position signal indicative of the location on the surface; a data storage unit to store a data map in which map values are stored at respective data locations that correspond with physical locations on the surface in the region of interest per a predetermined spatial resolution defining spacing between adjacent data locations; a processor configured to obtain samples of the characteristic signal as respective characteristic measurements and corresponding samples of the position signal as measurement locations at which the characteristic measurements were obtained as the housing is translated over the surface such that no more than a single characteristic measurement is obtained from each of the at least one sensor while positioned at any of the measurement locations and compute the map values for the respective data locations from one or more of the characteristic measurements mapped to each data location from the corresponding measurement location by a mapping function generated from the position signal and the numerical values generated from the characteristic signal; and a display to visually render a two-dimensional image from the data map associated numerical values so as to be perceived by a human.