A Free X-Ray Inspection Tool for Ballistic Ceramic Plates
A few days back, we received a question from a professional working in the ballistic protection industry. They were dealing with a very specific problem: how do you efficiently inspect X-ray scans of ceramic strike plates — and how do you make that inspection process clearer, faster, and easier to document?
That question led to the development of XRAY-ANALYZE, a browser-based inspection tool we built as an MVP. It is open source, MIT licensed, and completely free to use.
Ballistic protection panels — the kind used in body armor and vehicle protection — often contain a ceramic strike face. When a projectile hits the panel, it is the ceramic layer that absorbs and breaks up the round. That is by design.
The problem is that ceramics are brittle. A plate that has been dropped, impacted, or subjected to stress may develop internal fractures that are invisible from the outside. To the naked eye, the plate looks perfectly fine. In reality, the ceramic layer is compromised.
A cracked ceramic plate does not protect the way it should. The structural integrity is weakened, and in a ballistic event, the outcome could be very different from what the protection rating implies. This is not a theoretical risk — it is a real operational concern for anyone who issues, maintains, or relies on this type of equipment.
Regular inspection is therefore not a bureaucratic checkbox. It is a direct factor in whether the equipment does its job when it matters.
X-ray imaging is the standard non-destructive method for inspecting the internal condition of ceramic plates. Modern X-ray systems produce high-resolution TIFF files — often 16-bit grayscale scans at 3000 × 3000 pixels or larger.
These files contain a lot of information, but extracting that information requires the right tools. Raw TIFF viewers show the image, but they do not help you:
The question we received was essentially this: can you build something that makes this process more systematic?
XRAY-ANALYZE is a single HTML file — no installation required, no server, no internet connection needed during use. You open it in Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, drag in a TIFF file, and start analyzing.
It was built as an MVP: a focused, functional tool that covers the core inspection workflow without unnecessary complexity.
The tool includes a full image processing pipeline running directly in the browser:
Two edge detection algorithms are available:
Both can be displayed as a standalone edge map or composited as a colored overlay on the original image.
The tool includes an automated crack detection function. It applies connected components analysis to the edge map and filters the results by length and aspect ratio — long, narrow shapes are flagged as crack candidates. Each candidate is labeled and color-coded by severity, and clicking a result zooms the viewer to that location.
Inspectors can draw freeform polyline annotations directly on the image. Each annotation includes:
Annotations are saved within the session and included in the report.
If you know the physical dimensions of a reference feature in the image, you can set a pixel-to-millimeter calibration. After that, all measurements — cursor position, crack lengths — are displayed in millimeters alongside the pixel values.
With one click, the tool generates a full inspection report in HTML format, which can be printed or saved as a PDF. The report includes:
.html fileXRAY-ANALYZE is released under the MIT license. That means you can download it, use it in your organization, modify it for your specific workflow, or build on it — without any restrictions and without any cost.
We built it because someone asked a good question and the tooling to answer it did not exist in an accessible form. If it is useful to others working in the same field, that is exactly the point.
The file is available to download directly from this page. No account required.
Built by PROFILE EQUIPMENT BV. Questions or feedback? Get in touch.
Steenpad 13
4797SG Willemstad
The Netherlands