1. A method for detecting features on laminated veneer lumber (LVL) comprising: providing a billet having a first planar surface and a second planar surface; generating a beam of x-ray radiation onto the first planar surface; measuring intensity of the beam of x-ray radiation below the second planar surface after is passes through the LVL billet; processing the measured intensity to create an image, the image comprising one or more pixels arranged in one or more columns; measuring a mean intensity for each of the one or more of columns to create a one dimensional array; fitting a second order polynomial to the one dimensional array; subtracting the second order polynomial from the one-dimensional array to create a difference array; passing the difference array through a low pass filter to create a filtered array; performing a peak and valley search on the filtered array to identify features on the first billet.