Patent ID: 7244941

Claim:
A method for inspecting a series of articles containing discrete objects and selecting for further examination certain objects comprising the steps of: conveying said series of articles into and through an inspection zone; irradiating each article of said series of articles with incident electromagnetic radiation while said article is in said inspection zone; measuring the electromagnetic radiation emanating from each article within said series of articles; processing said measured electronic radiation to create an electronic image of each article, said electronic image including images of any discrete objects within said article; selecting one of a plurality of inspectors to inspect the image of an article from said series on an interactive display assigned to that inspector; displaying the image of said article on the interactive display screen assigned to the selected inspector; repeating said selecting and displaying steps so that each of said plurality of inspectors has the image of a different article displayed on the interactive display dedicated to that inspector; visually inspecting the image of said article by the selected inspector on that inspector's interactive display for any objects that would require further examination; selecting any objects within said article by the selected inspector on that inspector's interactive display that require further examination; marking any selected objects within said image of said specific article; creating a marked-up image of said specific article if any objects were previously selected for further examination; storing said marked-up image of said specific article; and assigning a new image to said inspector.