Generation of radiographic techniques for digital radiography applications

Digital X-ray radiography is becoming more and more popular due to its advantages over conventional film radiography. The selection of the values for the parameters of radiographic techniques, such as kV, mA and exposure time, is very important for image quality. The generation of film radiographic inspection techniques is normally completed by experienced non-destructive testing personnel. With the emergence of digital radiographic detector arrays, there is a need for an X-ray technique generator that can generate optimum techniques and predict the response with these detector arrays. Also, as X-ray images include the thickness information of the material being inspected, it is possible with a technique generator to measure material thickness using digital X-ray radiography.

The objective of this paper is to describe software that has been developed to generate radiographic techniques and to measure material thickness. The main capabilities of the software are:

Generation of exposure charts.

Generation of characteristic curves.

Generation of X-ray techniques that can produce the expected image effects, such as maximum contrast, maximum latitude, and a mixture of contrast and latitude.

Thickness calculations based on the counts, exposure chart, the characteristic curve, and the X-ray technique.

Production of a thickness map.

The theory that enables the above mentioned functions to be realised will be described.