VISUAL INSPECTION APPARATUS OF ROUND ROD BODY

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a visual inspection apparatus capable of easily, reliably detecting a defect such as a flaw and dirt on the surface of a cigarette. SOLUTION: The visual inspection apparatus comprises: a rotary mechanism for allowing the cigarette to rotate on its axis at a prescribed position; and a line sensor 9 that images the circumferential surface of the round rod body rotating on its axis by the rotary mechanism along the axial direction for each line for obtaining an appearance image over the entire circumference of the round rod body. Then, the visual inspection apparatus forms a misregister image by giving prescribed misalignment to an image to be inspected that is obtained by the line sensor 9 and is subjected to visual inspection, finds the misregister image between the deviation image and the image to be inspected (an image processing section 12), and judges each pixel level in the differential image for extracting a visual defect site in the round rod body by a host computer 13. COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO