Machine vision in the metal processing industry – A new dimension of quality, automation and productivity
Altera Stratix V FPGA. Te company also provides an FPGA Development Kit for programming the module. Te trade fair was a success, with
both visitor and exhibitor numbers up following switching to a biennial cycle in 2013. Te trade fair attracted more than 8,700 visitors, equivalent to a growth of around 25 per cent compared with the last event in 2012. Dr Olaf Munkelt, chairman of the
VDMA Machine Vision group in Frankfurt and managing director of MVTec Soſtware, commented: ‘We are highly pleased with the number and quality of trade visitors. We have received very positive feedback from all branches of industry. Due to the new two-year rhythm we were able to make much better presentations of our innovations.’ A total of 432 exhibitors displayed
their products at the trade fair, a record number, with 54 per cent foreign exhibitors. Tere was also a rise in the number of international visitors, with 40 per cent of visitors coming from outside Germany from 54 different countries. Tis year’s Vision Award was won
by Odos Imaging for its time-of- flight (ToF) imager (see page 9). Te Real.iZ 3D camera offers megapixel resolution (1.3 megapixels in the current model, with a 4.2-megapixel version to follow in 2015). Odos Imaging exhibited for the first
time at Vision in 2012 when time-of- flight was considered less suitable for machine vision and less was known about the technique’s capabilities. Now, two years on, there were a
number of ToF products on display at the show, and while the technique still can’t offer measurements at millimetre accuracy, the 3D imagers have potential for automation. Basler was displaying a prototype
time-of-flight camera, diversifying from its standard camera product portfolio. Te Basler ToF camera is targeted at cost-sensitive applications in logistics, for measuring sizes of
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boxes for instance, in robotics for bin picking, as well as driver assistance and autonomous vehicle navigation. It is based on a ToF Panasonic CCD sensor, has a working range of 50cm to 5 metres and a depth accuracy of ±1cm. Te resolution ranges from VGA to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels and the camera has a GigE interface. Te operating principle of time-
of-flight involves measuring the time taken for a pulse of light to return from an object in the scene, thereby giving depth information. Both the Odos Imaging and Basler products capture an intensity image as well as depth information for each pixel, so images combine 2D and 3D data. Bluetechnix was another time-
of-flight company exhibiting at the trade fair. Its Argos3D-P320 device combines a smart depth sensor IC with a 1080p CMOS sensor for 2D imaging. Te camera is suitable for robot and automation application or for counting people. While 3D imaging was well
represented at the show, the technology still has some way to go until it’s widespread in industry. Dr Wolfgang Eckstein, a managing director of MVTec, commented at the show that, in his opinion, 3D vision is big area of innovation, but it is not a big market yet. MVTec released version 12 of its
Halcon machine vision soſtware at the trade fair, with 3D image processing one of the highlighted toolkits. Te company demonstrated the power of Halcon with a robotic system that scanned the surface of a banana in 3D and then punched patterns into the skin based on the surface contours. Te data processing requirements
for 3D vision are reasonably intense, and this is one area where making use of FPGAs or additional processing power can be needed – Odos Imaging’s Real.iZ ToF camera incorporates FPGA cores. Embedded vision is an area that 3D camera companies are also making use. O
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