Patent ID: 7965816

Claim:
A scanning X-ray inspection system for scanning an object and displaying pixelated images of its contents, comprising: a) an X-ray generation device for generating a flying-spot pencil beam of X-rays repetitively sweeping along a straight line in a scanning direction across said object; b) transport means for moving said object through an inspection zone of said system in a transport direction substantially perpendicular said scanning direction; c) a scatter detector for generating a scatter signal represented by a scatter signal array comprising scatter pixels, each representative of the intensity of X-rays scattered from a particular region of said object; d) a transmission detector for generating a transmission signal represented by a transmission signal array comprising transmission pixels, each corresponding to one of said scatter pixels and representative of the intensity of X-rays in said pencil beam transmitted through said particular region of said object and undeviated in direction; e) a read-write memory for storing said scatter signal array and said transmission signal array; f) a processor for processing said scatter and transmission signal arrays to associate with each said pixel a value of effective atomic number Z eff ; and g) a display for displaying a scatter image comprising scatter display pixels corresponding to said scatter pixels and a transmission image comprising transmission display pixels corresponding to said transmission pixels, and wherein: at least one of said scatter image and said transmission image is colorized, each pixel of said colorized image being displayed in accordance with a color descriptor derived from said Z eff value corresponding to said pixel, and each said Z eff value is determined in accordance with a preselected mapping that uniquely specifies said Z eff value for values of said scatter pixel and said transmission pixel.