Fault detection of shadow mask by use of image data processing

At the KACC'91 conference, we proposed a method of automatic detection of shape of the faulty holes of a shadow mask which is used in a cathode-ray tube of a color television. In this method, the image data are taken from two areas of the mask with CCD camera. Comparing the shape of holes in these two areas by use of a signal processing technique, we can find any fault in the shape of holes. This paper describes the effect of smoothing filters of effectively finding the faulty holes from the difference image data. A computer simulation and actual experiment with a shadow mask have shown that this method of fault detection is very effective for practical use.