3D Machine Vision

More and more 3D takes its place in machine vision. Here are the main technologies available today:

Stereo / multi-view

This is simulating human distance perception using 2 or more point of views. Usually handled by pairs, the images are compared in their shared field of view. A disparity image is provided as the difference in ‘latteral’ position from one view to the other representing a direct relation to the distance of the topology to the middle of the connecting segment joining the 2 point of views.

Structured light projection

A pattern or a succession of patterns are projected in a scene. By mesuring the distortion of the pattern(s) it is possible to suppose what topology could have produced it.

3D laser scanner/profiler

This is probably the most established technique also known as sheet of light. A laser line (forming a plane) is projected on an object, by looking at how the line formed on the object we have an idea about its topology along that line. Read more…

Lidar

Probably best described as Light Radar. A scene is scanned with a laser (point), by measuing the time/phase of the signal returned, information about the distance and material properties can be collected.

TOF Time-of-Flight

A flash of light (usually non-visible) is projected and the camera collects for each pixel how long the light comes back as a direct relation to the distance travelled.

Sonar

Instead of light, a sound wave is emitted, by reading how it comes back, we can determine topology of what created the reflection.

 

MVTec’s Halcon

Embedded / Smart cameras

Here is the evaluation of the Vision Components nano 6210. Read more…

Open Ethernet communication

Here is how we can interface an Ethernet device to Halcon without using a custom frame grabber interface. Read more…

Use and Tips

Fast generation of tuple in Halcon 10 for coordinates indexing. Read more…