Lillyhall inspection firm launches its own radiography software to the world

The radiographers behind Flawed Ltd and Responsive Training Services on Lillyhall Industrial Estate, Workington, have turned the software they built for their own work into a product other inspection companies can now subscribe to.

Clearshot DR, launched this month by Workington-based Test Inspect Group, lets inspectors open, enhance, measure and share digital X-ray images of welds and components in an ordinary web browser, on a PC, tablet or phone, with nothing to install.

Industrial radiography is used across West Cumbria's nuclear, energy and manufacturing sites to find hidden flaws in welds before they become failures. As the industry moves from photographic film to digital detectors, each X-ray becomes a computer file, and the team at Lillyhall found the software had not kept up: it lived on one licensed PC, files were awkward to send to clients, and image quality checks were done by hand from tables in a binder.

So they built their own. Clearshot DR measures in real millimetres, checks each image against the international standard ISO 17636-2 and shows which table it used, and keeps every original file untouched with a digital fingerprint. Instead of posting a USB stick, a client gets one secure link that expires, and every time it is opened is recorded. An optional AI assistant can point out possible flaws, but only a qualified interpreter can accept them and sign off the result.

All the data is stored in the UK, in London, which matters to customers handling sensitive work.

"This started as a tool for our own radiographers here in Workington, and it has turned into something we can sell to inspection companies anywhere in the world," said Lee Grears, Founder and Chief Executive of Test Inspect Group. "Going digital is the biggest change in radiography for a generation, but a digital image is only as good as what you can prove about it. We wanted to open the file anywhere, measure it properly, check it against the standard and give the client one link instead of a USB stick."

Clearshot DR is sold on monthly subscriptions from £49, with a 14-day free trial, at clearshotdr.ai.