Patent ID: 7356175

Claim:
An inspection system for automatically detecting and classifying manufacturing defects in decorative wood panels following assembly of a decorative wood laminate, having a decorative wood facing, to a core or blank, said decorative wood facing having desirable areas of natural wood shading and said system using a photographic image of said panel as the basis for detecting and classifying said defects, which system comprises: creating multiple sets of computer driven recipes corresponding to multiple decorative wood panel types, each computer drive recipe utilizing detectors and classifiers specifically created from images of defects of varying types and degrees exhibited by sample decorative wood panels of a corresponding decorative wood panel type comparable to said decorative wood panels to be inspected; providing a controller for instructing the system as to which decorative wood panel type is to be processed and accordingly the recipes to be applied to that wood panel type, the controller further comprising the capability of examining the detectors and classifiers of the various recipes, determining similarities of wood type defects of such various recipes as compared to a decorative wood panel type for which a recipe is not created, and selecting desired ones of said detectors and classifiers for custom creating a new recipe for said decorative wood type; providing a work order form which identifies production criteria including a decorative wood panel type to be produced, such identification in the form of a bar code readable by the controller and transferable by the controller to the computer driven recipes for selection of the applicable recipe; photographically scanning said decorative wood panels to be inspected following assembly and determining therefrom and with reference to the applied recipes the occurrence of defects and a defect value based on the size and shape of the defect; and assigning a grade of acceptability to such inspected panels based upon the defect value indicated.