US Patent 12066287 Brake component monitoring

A solution for evaluating a component of a vehicle, such as a brake pad of a rail vehicle, is provided. An imaging component can acquire image data for a target area of the vehicle within which at least a portion of the component is visible. The target area can be illuminated by an illumination device that is, for example, horizontally offset from the imaging device to highlight the three-dimensional structure in the target area by creating shadows in the image data. A set of points corresponding to the component can be identified in the image data using the shadows. A measurement for at least one attribute of the component can be calculated from the set of points.