Importance

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Abstract

In appearance inspection for a printed image, image data without a fault or image data in which a fault is corrected is selected as a reference image, and a table having, as its elements, flags in a number corresponding to the number of levels of an image for each pixel of the reference image is prepared. An index space is formed by a set of tables of all the pixels, and a reference pattern is formed by turning on the flags in the space. The flags in the index space are inspected and determined once for each pixel in accordance with attribute values of an image to be inspected. Setting of an allowable range for inspection is performed as pre-processing before flag propagation processing for turning on flags within the allowable range in the index space is performed. The flag is not limited to a binary one having values of ON and OFF but may be a multivalue one. The index space can be compressed by expressing flags by a hierarchical structure utilizing image data characteristics. By setting the reference image and the index space in a relationship other than a one-to-one correspondence, X and Y sizes or a level axis of the index space can be reduced.

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First Claim