3DMaMa Presentation available at TordivelBlog

http://tordivelblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/3dmama-presentation-held-at-vision-2009/

The Tordivel Blog – keep up to date with developments

For more in depth detail on Scorpion Vision Software and the most up to date news on technical developments, the Tordivel Blog has regular contributions by Thor Vollset, the man behind Scorpion Vision. Recent entries of note are 3D Imaging – Locating Multiple Objects in a PointCloud, which discusses the ability of the software to identify and differentiate multiple objects presented in adisorganised manner. The technique can be used for Random Bin Picking, an achievement that has been referred to as the holy grail in robot guidance and a topic that receives much negative press because many have claimed to have solved the problem but the reality has been harder to prove.

The Tordivel Blog details the successes of this and other developments and backs it all up with facts and figures.

PW

Scorpion Vision: A Logical Technology for Recycling Systems

Having spent two long days last week in a factory making 200 million hooks for retail businesses (and who, with the help of Scorpion want to re-use old, returned product). And this week promoting the use of a system that checks the quality of dough before it enters the oven in a factory producing thousands of bread based products (and diverting those raw products for re-processing) it occurred to me that we aren’t shouting enough about the green credentials that Scorpion Vision Software justly deserves.

This is a part of the modern commercial landscape that we should be laying claim to. It is not by any means a tenuous link, as vision systems like Scorpion can be used to recycle any kind of product or material at high speed – faster and more accurately than humans could ever do.

Incidentally, four years ago I was working with an engineering company to build a cardboard recycling system. Scorpion’s role in this was to monitor waste paper streams in a waste recycling plant. When cardboard is detected on the conveyors, a signal is sent to divert the cardboard away onto a second conveyor to a bailing machine. Previuosly this work was carried out by dozens of low paid immigrant workers. No offence to those workers but they can only do so much with little incentive!

So, the slogon ‘Eliminates Your Weakest Link’ is more appropriate than ever before.

Watch this blog for more details on Scorpion’s role in recycling and other projects that benefit the environment and humanity in general.

PW

Sony Technology Day – Thursday 10th December @ Brooklands Museum

Here’s advance notification of a forthcoming industry event to be held at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey UK.

A long timepartner of Sony (Image Sensing Solutions Europe), Tordivel placed a strong emphasis from the early days on using Sony cameras for the more challenging applications (high speed can inspection is one example) and created special packages, bundling Sony cameras with Scorpion Vision Software.

The relationship continues and to promote the latest and greatest in Sony technology, Sony are sponsoring a special machine vision technology day at a venue close their HQ. Our involvement is as the organiser and catalyst, as a camera needs good software (and software needs a good camera).

Watch this space and keep an eye open for more information about this special event which should be of great interest to machine vision engineers. If you’re in the industry and don’t currently use Sony products or Scorpion Vision Software, you are urged to come along even if it’s just to keep up up with industry happenings. The main focus will be on the Sony Smartcamera running Scorpion Vision Software but there will also be the opportunity to take a close look at the new range of Sony Gigabit Ethernet machine vision cameras as well as the SNC series of network cameras more traditionally used in CCTV applications. Why are we showing you these?  It’s an example of convergence from two distinct areas within the field of imaging technology.

Of course, there will be the opportunity to see the traditional stable mates of Sony Imaging, with the newest Sony Firewire machine vision devices such as the XCD-V60, XCD-SX90 and XCD-U100 cameras.

If you’re already using Sony and Scorpion, then you’ll have a chance to meet both Sony and Tordivel lumineries, plus the chance to get valuable advice from the some of the best machine vision engineers.

To register early (advisable), click here.

PW

Visit us at the PPMA Show at the NEC to see the 3D Bakery Inspection System

 

 

We’ll be on stand E121 with our distributor Lambda Photometrics demonstrating a number of camera and software systems.

Click for more information

Specifically, and in tune with the nature of the PPMA Show which is all about packaging, we’ll have an active simulation of our 3D bakery inspection system running on a big screen. The bakery inspection system uses Scorpion Vision Software and a laser/camera triangulation configuration to build a mathematical model of the pizza bread (or other bakery item) in 3D, in real time as the breads move along the conveyor. Any bread that does not meet the quality criteria is then rejected using a series of pneumatic ejectors forcing it off the conveyor in a second. The criterion for passing or failing can be on the thickness of the bread, roundness (or other shape), or it’s unevenness (is it the same thickness across the whole of the pizza or does it undulate?). As colour matching is also processed at the same time the system can tell if the bread is undercooked or burnt or cooked unevenly.

That’s the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, UK. Show dates run from 29th September to the 1st of October inclusive.

An opportunity to meet the team behind Scorpion Vision Software

There is a rare opportunity in September to meet the core team responsible for our software. More details in this newsletter.

Checking For Golf Balls In A Sea of Potatoes

Here’s a simple but novel Scorpion Vision application. Some years ago a well known producer of potato crisps asked if it was possible to detect golf balls

No golfballs detected

in the potato conveyor before the potatoes were given the chop. The problem was that the mechanical methods used to remove foreign objects such as metal or stone just didn’t detect the more ‘organic’ make up of the common or garden golf ball, of which there seemed to be a persistent presence in the crop being delivered to the factory.

With Scorpion Vision, this proved to be a simple solution that was deployed by the local machine builder who had very little experience with machine vision systems. With a

Golfballs detected!

little help from us, he configured colour cameras to snapshot 1 square metre of the conveyor, then set up the ColorAnalyser tool to scan each image for the presence of red, white or yellow. The detection of red and white amongst a crop of potatoes is very easy but the yellow proved more challenging as there was a relatively high number of false detections caused by reflections from both potatoes and the rollers on the conveyor. However, these were reduced by utilising the shape and circularity filters in the ColorAnalyser.

The colour analyser tool integrates blob analyses with HSI (Hue Saturation and Intensity) pixel measurements. As blob detection is built into the analyser, standard blob functions are available making this a very powerful and sensitive vision tool.

A complex, multicamera vision system for less than £5k!

Unibrain 70fps Bonsai Camera

Here’s an idea:

Take four Unibrain compact machine vision cameras costing less than £400 each. 

Add a Scorpion Lite license for £1070.

Allow say, £800 for a decent industrial PC, another £1000 for lights, cables and power.

And another £300 for optical triggers for the cameras, some aluminium profile for attaching everything to.

Scorpion Vision Software

That’s a total of £4770 for the components of a very comprehensive machine vision system that will potentially inspect four production lines simultaneously, many times a second.

But what about development time to create the application? It’s all in the built-in toolbox. All the algortithms are there. A competent person can do it in less than a day depending on the complexities involved.

So, it IS possible to build a vision system to inspect four production lines for less than £5000. Of course there are other costs involved like engineer’s onsite time and training the system with good and bad products for example. But the point is that the real hardware costs can be easily recouped in a very short period of time, demonstrating that the Return On Investment can easily be measured.

Furthermore, with Scorpion Vision much of the programming is already done. The production engineer just has to put it all together using the 150+ vision tool suite at his or her disposal.

PW

New Support for IP Cameras in Scorpion Vision Software

We’ve just added support for Sony’s SNC-CS20 and SNC-CM120 network cameras. In fact any IP camera using the same network protocols will probably work (but have not been tested).

Network, or IP cameras are more traditionally used in remote CCTV monitoring for security purposes. Until now, there has been relatively small crossover from the world of security to the high performance world of machine vision where constants are critical. There are exceptions of course but these are mainly related to that of automatic number plate recognition systems, or ANPR.

Machine vision systems that are measuring continuously and feeding back live data or making pass/fail decisions based on pre-determined tolerances require, it could be argued, higher specification devices than are available to the CCTV market. A fundamental consideration for in-line machine vision systems is the control of illumination. Fluctuating light can make the pixel values in an image change and cause false or inaccurate readings. A badly implemented vision system can be troublesome if these constants aren’t achieved. Good clear images with perfect illumination is in fact the foundation on which the building blocks of robust machine vision systems are cemented.

With the latest Scorpion machine vision software, certain benefits of the CCTV world are brought into the machine vision world. The Sony network camera with built-in auto-iris and auto-focus can minimise the impact of varying light. Scorpion Vision Software can exploit this fact  and so this is a compelling package for some machine vision applications.

Indeed, when high performance imaging isn’t critical, then a number of aspects can be considered:

• Reading text
• Reading numbers
• Measuring areas
• Measuring distances
• Locating objects
• Counting objects

Then of course, there is the real possibility of using powerful machine vision software in security applications – utilising an existing IP camera network!

PW

Checking for Porosity in Metal Castings

Valentine Robotics, a Scorpion Vision integrator in the US has developed a system that can detect porosity in metal. With specialised lighting, the Scorpion Vision system can detect the phenomonen down to 0.5mm. In the recent example of an engine block inspection, the objective was to detect porosity and other surface defects ranging from 0.5mm to 2mm.

In image 1,  the metal appears to be pure white, but in image 2 the porosity clearly stands out against the white surface.

Gear Porosity

Another project required detection of porosity in the teeth of a gear. This kind of application is problematical for vision systems due to issues with shadows and reflective material. With Scorpion Vision, Valentine Robotics were able to solve the problems, as can be seen in the following images.

Transmission Housings

Four different machined surfaces were checked simultaneously using medium resolution 1394.b (Firewire 800) cameras.  The tolerance of the porosity was 2mm maximum size with any porosity found no closer than 5mm and no more than 3 per surface area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The bad part exhibits porosity. The blue lines are actual measurements between the porose areas. The porosity tolerance calls for the measurement to be no closer than 5mm.

Another example of a diverse application for Scorpion Vision Software. The complexities of porosity detection are dealt with by the integrated vsion tool set and the automatic image sampling/brightness contrast adjustment is used to good effect to negate the issues with back scatter and varying surface types.

PW