Patent ID: 7286634

Claim:
A method for expediting the inspection of articles containing discrete objects in a series of articles in a queue wherein the articles are conveyed substantially continuously through an inspection zone from an input zone to a diversion zone to select for further examination certain discernable potential threat objects within an article in the series of articles to determine the presence of one or more potential threat objects within an article comprising steps of: (a) continuously conveying each of the articles in the series of articles containing discrete objects into and through an inspection zone; (b) successively irradiating each of the articles in said series of articles containing discrete objects with incident electromagnetic radiation while in said inspection zone; (c) measuring the electromagnetic radiation emanating from each of said irradiated articles in said series of articles containing discrete objects; (d) processing said measured electromagnetic radiation to produce and store one or more electronic images of each of said irradiated articles in said series of articles containing discrete objects; (e) sequentially presenting an electronic image of an article for visual display on one of a plurality of visual displays for examination of discrete objects; (f) presenting the electronic image of the next article in the queue to a second of the plurality of visual displays for examination of discrete objects; (g) sequentially presenting the electronic images of the next several electronic images of the articles in the queue on one of the total of inspection displays until each display presents an electronic image for examination of discrete objects in an article in the queue; (h) interactively selecting, from a visual display, discrete objects discernable within the image of an irradiated article in said series of articles containing discrete objects; (i) examining the selected discrete objects and determining the presence of a potential threat object among any of the selected discrete objects within the article; (k) storing the determination respecting the examination of the article in conjunction with the storage of the electronic image of the article; and (l) replacing the displayed image of the examined article upon which the determination has been made with an electronic image of an unexamined article in the queue.