Conveyor health inspection method

A method for inspecting a rail of a conveyor system, the method comprising:

• illuminating an inner periphery of the rail with a light beam in the form of a line of light;
• translating the light beam along the rail in a direction of translation, the direction of translation generally perpendicular to the light beam;
• and
• using the light beam to identify one or more faults in the rail.

A method for inspecting a rail of a conveyor system, the method comprising:

• illuminating the rail with a light beam in the form of a line of light directed obliquely to a surface of the rail and extending in a first direction;
• translating the light beam along the rail in a direction of translation, the direction of translation generally perpendicular to the first direction;
• sensing reflection of the light beam from the surface as the light beam is translated;
• using the reflection to construct a three-dimensional topography of the surface, where the three dimensional topography of the surface is constructed using the following:
• capturing video of the reflected light beam as the light beam translates along the rail, the video comprising successive frames;
• for each of the frames, determining a highest-intensity pixel for each of a plurality of columns that extend parallel to the direction of translation;
• saving a y[i,x] location for each highest-intensity pixel, where y is the direction of translation, x is the first direction and i is a number of a respective one of the successive frames;
• and
• concatenating the y[i,x] locations to construct the three-dimensional topography.