Method of processing radiographic image data for detecting a welding defect

A method of inferring the type of a weld defect comprising:

• forming a knowledge base comprising a plurality of defect inference rules;
• measuring a feature of a weld defect of interest in a radiographic image of a weld;
• applying a plurality of the defect inference rules to the measured feature to calculate, for each applied rule, a probability that the weld defect of interest is of a certain type;
• collating all the calculated probabilities to obtain a total probability;
• and
• inferring the type of the weld defect of interest based on the total probability.

A method of inferring the type of a weld defect comprising:

• measuring a plurality of features of weld defects in a radiographic image;
• forming a database of the measured features;
• forming a knowledge base comprising a plurality of defect inference rules, each of which corresponds to one or more defect features and gives a probability that a defect is of a certain type;
• forming a knowledge base of user input information related to welding conditions;
• applying one or more of the inference rules to one of the measured features of a defect of interest in the radiographic image to determine a probability that the defect of interest is a specific type of defect;
• collating the probability with the user input information to obtain a total probability;
• and
• inferring the type of the defect of interest from the total probability.