Visual inspection is a common method of
quality control
Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements".
This approach places ...
,
data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...
, and
data analysis
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enco ...
.
Visual Inspection, used in maintenance of facilities, mean inspection of equipment and structures using either or all of raw human senses such as vision, hearing, touch and smell and/or any non-specialized inspection equipment.
Inspections requiring Ultrasonic, X-Ray equipment, Infra-red, etc. are not typically regarded as Visual Inspection as these Inspection methodologies require specialized equipment, training and certification.
Quality control
A study of the visual inspection of small
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
s found that the modal duration of eye fixations of trained inspectors was about 200 ms. The most accurate inspectors made the fewest eye fixations and were the fastest. When the same chip was judged more than once by an individual inspector the consistency of judgment was very high whereas the consistency between inspectors was somewhat less. Variation by a factor of six in inspection speed led to variation of less than a factor of two in inspection accuracy. Visual inspection had a
false positive
A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test resul ...
rate of 2% and a
false negative
A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test resul ...
rate of 23%.
Humorous terminology
To do an eyeball search is to look for something specific in a mass of
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
or data with
one's own eyes, as opposed to using some sort of
pattern matching
In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking a given sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact: "either it will or will not be ...
software like
grep
grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. Its name comes from the ed command ''g/re/p'' (''globally search for a regular expression and print matching lines''), which has the sa ...
or any other automated search tool. Also known as vgrep or ogrep, i.e., "visual/optical grep", and in the
IBM mainframe world as IEBIBALL. The most important application of eyeball search / vgrep in
software engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...
is
vdiff.
In various disciplines it is also called the "eyeball technique" or "eyeball method" (of data assessment).
"Eyeballing" is the most common and readily available method of initial data assessment.
Experts in
pattern recognition
Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...
maintain that the "eyeball" technique is still the most effective procedure for searching arbitrary, possibly unknown structures in data.
In the military, applying this sort of search to real-world terrain is often referred to as "using the Mark I Eyeball" device (pronounced as Mark One Eyeball), the U.S. military adopting it in 1950s.
["Contemporary Geodesy" (Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Harvard College Observatory - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA, December 1–2, 1958)]
P. 68
says: "Now the first type of optical tracking, the most elementary, is that using merely the naked eye — as I heard a Navy man say the other day, 'Mark I eyeball' ". The term is an allusion on military nomenclature, "Mark I" being the first version of a military vehicle or weapon.
See also
*
Automated optical inspection
*
Inspection
An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. In engineering activities inspection involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity. ...
*
Inspection (medicine)
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally consists of a series of questions about the patient ...
*
Statistical graphics
Statistical graphics, also known as statistical graphical techniques, are graphics used in the field of statistics for data visualization.
Overview
Whereas statistics and data analysis procedures generally yield their output in numeric or tabul ...
*
Visual search
Visual search is a type of perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves an active scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature (the target) among other objects or features (the distractors). Visual search can ...
*
Visual comparison A visual comparison is to compare two or more things by eye. This might be done by placing them side by side; by overlaying them; by alternating an image or by presenting each image to a separate eye.
Such comparisons are the first stage in a chil ...
References
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Quality control
Data analysis
Vision
Computer humor
Computer jargon
Military humor
Nondestructive testing