Method and system for reference-free thermographic detection of subsurface defects using compressed image data

A method and system for non-destructive, reference-free thermographic detection of sub-surface defects uses an infrared camera to capture images of a sample that has been heated and allow to cool to equilibrium temperature. The temperature-time data obtained for each pixel in each image is converted into the logarithmic domain and a least squares fit is conducted on the data to generate a polynomial expression corresponding to the temperature-time data for a given pixel. This polynomial expression can be transformed into the original time domain to obtain temperature-time data with improved signal-to-noise characteristics. Defects can be detected by observing the zero-crossing characteristic of the second derivative of the polynomial.