Method and apparatus for automatically detecting patterns in digital point-ordered signals

The present invention is a method and system for detecting a physical feature of a test piece by detecting a pattern in a signal representing data from inspection of the test piece. The pattern is detected by automated additive decomposition of a digital point-ordered signal which represents the data. The present invention can properly handle a non-periodic signal. A physical parameter of the test piece is measured. A digital point-ordered signal representative of the measured physical parameter is generated. The digital point-ordered signal is decomposed into a baseline signal, a background noise signal, and a peaks/troughs signal. The peaks/troughs from the peaks/troughs signal are located and peaks/troughs information indicating the physical feature of the test piece is output.