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How AI Sees Your Welds: A Technical Deep Dive

March 16, 2026 | By Dan Johnson

Most welders don't think about what's happening behind the screen when they upload a photo to an AI welding app. The truth is fascinating, and it explains why AI is so good at finding defects that the human eye might miss.

The Basics: Your Photo Becomes a Grid

When you upload a weld photo, it doesn't stay as an image. The AI converts it into a grid of pixels. A standard photo might be 1920 x 1080 pixels - that's over 2 million individual data points the AI can analyze.

Each pixel contains:

XY Coordinates: Pinpointing Defects

This is where it gets interesting. The AI doesn't just see "something wrong" - it knows exactly where:

X coordinate: Horizontal position (left to right)

Y coordinate: Vertical position (top to bottom)

When DimeVision detects a defect, it reports something like:

Porosity detected at X: 450, Y: 320 - 85% confidence

That's radically more precise than "your bead looks messy."

What AI Actually Detects

Here's how the AI analyzes each pixel group:

1. Porosity

Dark spots in the weld metal. The AI looks for circular or irregular dark patterns that differ from the surrounding weld color.

2. Undercut

Grooves at the weld toe. The AI detects color discontinuities - places where the weld doesn't fully fill the joint.

3. Spatter

Irregular metal particles outside the weld. The AI identifies scattered bright spots that don't match the expected pattern.

4. Incomplete Fusion

Where the weld didn't fully penetrate. The AI looks for boundary inconsistencies where the weld metal didn't fuse with the base metal.

Bounding Boxes & Confidence Scores

For each detected defect, the AI draws a "bounding box" - a rectangle around the problem area. Each box comes with a confidence score (0-100%).

A score above 80% means the AI is highly confident. Below 50%, it might flag it as "potential issue" rather than definite defect.

Why This Matters for Welders

Traditional feedback is vague:

AI feedback is precise:

The Future: Real-Time Analysis

As camera technology improves and AI models get better, we'll see real-time video analysis. Point your phone at a weld in progress and get feedback before you finish the bead.

That's the future DimeVision is building toward.

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