1. A real time welding process for welding adjacent materials with a weld puddle formed between the materials, said method comprising the steps of bringing a welding apparatus and consumable and the materials together to form a weld puddle at the interface of the adjacent materials, producing relative motion between the welding apparatus and the materials thereby defining a front edge of the weld puddle, thermographically scanning the weld puddle and its adjacent heat affected zone from the front and producing image signals representative of a thermographic image of the weld, analyzing said puddle image signals to extract therefrom data indicative of irregularities in the welding procedure, and adjusting the welding procedure to reduce said irregularities.