Visual inspection systems acquire and process images to detect objects and features in order to analyze and determine characteristics or flaws in the objects or other features detected in the images. A camera/frame grabber system generates images that are then processed with an algorithm implemented in software.
Precision machine vision inspection systems are programmable and provide customized automated video inspection. The powerful software allows an automatic inspection sequence to be defined by the user for each particular work piece configuration. The very nature of these vision inspection systems is to simplify the process to the extent that non-expert operators can perform the inspection reliably and repeatedly. The results of the various inspection operations can also be stored. These advanced vision inspection systems are increasingly employed in a variety of manufacturing and quality control processes. Machine vision enables quicker, more accurate and repeatable results to be obtained in the production of both mass-produced and custom products.
Vision inspection systems now employ powerful search tools. Pattern matching and searching, a powerful tool in machine vision is used to determine the location of a fiducial, a mark, object or other "template" in an image. Search tools enable a previously trained/stored image pattern to be acquired and registered/identified regardless of its viewed position. Machine vision tools acquire an image of a pattern via a camera and analyze the outline or a particular part of the pattern.
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