Inspection of hidden structure

摘要

An inspection apparatus determines information indicative of structure that may be hidden behind an obscuring boundary, such as a wall. A processor collects measurements of properties characterizing the hidden structure and measurements of location of the apparatus. The collected data are mapped to produce an image of intensity in the characteristic measurements. Each intensity value in the image reflects a measure of density, of material type, or of some other specific information by which hidden structure can be discerned. The intensity changes indicating the hidden structure are displayed to a user via color-coded pixels or the like.

主权项

1. An apparatus to inspect a region of interest for physical structure through a surface therein, the apparatus comprising:
at least one sensor configured to generate a characteristic signal as the sensor is moved across the surface in the region of interest, the sensor defining a contact area on the surface over which at least one physical characteristic at each measurement location on the surface to which the sensor is moved is characterized by an attribute of the characteristic signal; a memory comprising storage locations logically-arranged in accordance with a coordinate system to represent map locations of a data map; a processor configured to:
determine the map locations representing the contact area in the coordinate system of the data map for each measurement location;estimate values of a structural characteristic of the physical structure from the quantified attribute of the characteristic signal for the map locations representing the contact area at the measurement location at which the characteristic signal was generated; andstore the computed values at the respective map locations of the data map; and a display to generate a two-dimensional visual image from the data map.