FEATURE Machine vision


How machine vision is advancing automation now


By Rolf Horn, Applications Engineer at DigiKey


M


achine vision is a


collection of technologies that give automated equipment high-level


understanding of its immediate environment from images. Without machine-vision software, digital images would be nothing more than simple unconnected pixel collections having various colour values and tone intensities. Machine vision allows computers (typically connected to machine controls) to detect edges and shapes within such images to enable higher-level processing routines to identify pre-defined objects of interest. Images in this sense can be photographic images in the visible spectrum, infrared, laser, X-ray, and ultrasound. One fairly common machine vision application in industrial settings is


16 May 2024 | Automation


to identify a specific part in a bin containing a jumbled up mix of parts. Here, machine vision enables a robot to automatically pick up the right part. This is enabled by robust machine vision algorithms that can recognise objects at different distances from the camera, and in different orientations.


Latest machine vision systems have enabled new and emerging designs far more sophisticated than bin picking – perhaps no more recognisable than in autonomous vehicles.


Technologies related to machine vision


The term machine vision is sometimes reserved to reference more established and efficient mathematical methods of extracting information from images. In contrast, the term computer vision


typically describes more modern and computationally-demanding systems, including black-box approaches using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). However, machine vision can also serve as a catch-all term encompassing all methods of high-level information extraction from images; in this context, computer vision describes its underlying theories of operation. There are many technologies to extract high-level meaning from images. Within the research community, such technologies are often considered distinct from machine vision. However, in a practical sense, they are all different ways of achieving machine vision, and in many cases they overlap. • Digital image processing is a form of digital-signal processing involving image enhancement, restoration,


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