Quantification by signal to noise ratio of active infrared thermography data processing techniques

Abstract

In this paper, the use of a signal to noise ratio (SNR) is proposed for the quantification of the goodness of some selected processing techniques of thermographic images, such as differentiated absolute contrast, skewness and kurtosis based algorithms, pulsed phase transform, principal component analysis and thermographic signal reconstruction. A new hy- brid technique is also applied (PhAC—Phase absolute contrast), it combines three different processing techniques: phase absolute contrast, pulsed phase thermography and thermographic signal reconstruction. The quality of the results is established on the basis of the values of the parameter SNR, assessed for the present defects in the analyzed specimen, which enabled to quantify and compare their identification and the quality of the results of the employed technique.