Patent ID: 8831172

Claim:
A method for filmless radiographic inspection of a component, comprising: submitting the component to radiography and creating digitized radiation signals of the component with a digital X-ray detector, processing the digitized radiation signals in a computer to generate a digitized X-ray image of the component indicating an internal defect in a material of the component, digitally recording an actual surface topography of the component to create a digitized surface topography, numerically defining a virtually smoothened surface determined by a highest peak of the digitized surface topography to create a complementary 3D element between the virtually smoothened surface and the digitized surface topography, the complementary 3D element being supplemented by an X-ray absorption coefficient specific to the material of the component, overlaying the digitized X-ray image with the complementary 3D element to produce a density image of the component independent of the actual surface topography of the component.