Machine Vision Overview

Machine vision is the use of machines instead of the human eye to make measurements and judgments. The machine vision system refers to the image captured by a machine vision product (ie, an image pickup device, which is divided into two types: CMOS and CCD), and then the image is transmitted to a processing unit, which is processed through digitization, according to pixel distribution, brightness, color, and other information. , to determine the size, shape, color, etc. Furthermore, based on the result of the determination, the on-site facility operation is controlled.

Machine vision systems are characterized by increased flexibility and automation of production. In some dangerous working environments that are not suitable for manual work or artificial vision is difficult to meet the requirements, machine vision is often used instead of artificial vision; at the same time, in the process of large-scale industrial production, the use of artificial vision to check the product quality is inefficient and the precision is not high. Machine vision inspection methods can greatly increase production efficiency and automation of production. Moreover, machine vision is easy to implement information integration and is the basic technology for achieving computer integrated manufacturing.

It is because machine vision systems can quickly acquire a large amount of information, and it is easy to handle automatically. It is also easy to integrate with design information and process control information. Therefore, in the modern automated production process, people use machine vision systems widely for food and beverages, Cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, building materials and chemicals, metal processing, electronics manufacturing, packaging, automotive manufacturing and other industries.

working principle:

The machine vision inspection system uses a CCD camera to convert the detected object into an image signal, which is then sent to a dedicated image processing system. It is converted into a digital signal based on pixel distribution, brightness, and color information. The image processing system performs various operations on these signals. To extract the characteristics of the target, such as area, number, position, and length, and then output the result according to the preset allowable degree and other conditions, including size, angle, number, pass/fail, yes/no, etc. to realize the automatic recognition function. .

Machine vision generally consists of an image acquisition unit, an image processing unit, image processing software, and a network communication device. The functions of each part are as follows:
Image Acquisition Unit In a smart camera, the image acquisition unit is equivalent to a CCD/CMOS camera and an image capture card in the ordinary sense. It converts optical images into analog/digital images and outputs them to image processing units. The image processing unit image processing unit is similar to the image acquisition/processing card. It can store the image data of the image acquisition unit in real time, and the machine vision system develops and processes the image with the support of the image processing software.

The image processing software image processing software mainly completes the image processing function under the support of the hardware environment of the image processing unit. Such as geometric edge extraction, Blob, grayscale histogram, OCV/OCR, simple positioning and search. In the smart camera, the above algorithms are all packaged or fixed modules, and the user can directly apply without programming.

Network Communication Device The network communication device is an important component of the smart camera and mainly accomplishes the communication tasks of control information and image data. Smart cameras generally have built-in Ethernet communication interfaces and support multiple standard network and bus protocols, allowing multiple smart cameras to form a larger machine vision system