Patent ID: 8265373

Claim:
A method for inspecting appearance of a long-length object formed by vulcanizing in a state in which a cloth member wraps spirally an outer surface of the long-length object and removing said cloth member from said outer surface after vulcanization, the method comprising the steps of: irradiating a slit light onto outer surface of the long-length object by a light source, moving the long-length object relative to the light source and the long-length object relatively in the length direction of the long-length object, and taking images of a lighted line, formed on the outer surface of the long-length object by irradiated slit light, from a direction forming an angle relative to a face of the slit light every predetermined timing; extracting each of height direction position data of the lighted line, which correspond respectively to a plurality of width direction positions of the long-length object, with respect to every taken image; subtracting base data, which are provided to each of the width direction positions according to a shape of the outer surface of the long-length object, from each of the height direction position data, which correspond to each of the width direction positions; making an inspection image by arranging subtracted height direction position data of each taken image in image-taking order so as to conform to a predetermined color standard; and judging existence of unusual on the inspection image on the basis of a predetermined judging standard, wherein, a guide mechanism guides the long-length object at a position which is upstream side of the moving direction of the long-length object relative to said lighted line, the guide mechanism has a plurality of guide members which are arranged with intervals in the circumferential direction of the long-length object and each of the guide members is provided so as to be pushed on the outer surface of the long-length object.