3D VISION
height to create the contrast in the image; this is a typical application where 3D is needed. A third one is related to robotics, to pick and place applications. Tere is an intense development of new camera and soſtware technologies to help solve these applications in an easier way. Tis helps to automate the industrial production processes. To bring Industry 4.0 to life you need a 3D camera to help robots see the objects they have to pick. Tis is where I see the biggest markets.’ For Puliš, 3D saves time as well. ‘Area
scanners can scan the whole pallet at once,’ he explained. ‘So, in 400 to 500 milliseconds you are able to scan the whole area. We use laser projection, which allows immunity to ambient light and is quite fast. Basically, when working with 2D, you need special light, and you really need to calibrate the whole system, which is something that is quite complicated. 3D devices are pre-calibrated and each scanner is pre-calibrated for its volume. ‘When something happens in the
application, you don’t need to re-calibrate the whole system, so you can save time in these cases. In 3D you have one more dimension, which means that for some applications, you really can save time in application development.’
Height measurement Referring to what he says are the four main technological drivers of 3D imaging – laser triangulation, structured light, stereoscopy and time of flight – Boridy believes each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and therefore suitability for differing applications. ‘For example, if you want to do robotic bin
picking, you want to source small parts in a big bag, so you use time of flight. Time of flight doesn’t have the resolution and accuracy of others but it can go faster [with] rough 3D measurements. If you want to do very precise measurements with high resolution, either use laser triangulation or structured light.’ ‘In the years before, there was no demand
for laser triangulation,’ added Kieneke. ‘Ten 3D printing was used for prototyping – even in
More applications are being opened up thanks to advances in 3D vision Smartphone manufacturers
are now using 3D imaging to measure the thickness of the battery because they can indicate whether it is good or bad
our companies we have used 3D printers in the last couple of years for designing housings for the sensors. In the past they were produced in Asia – the designer made draſts and we could wait a couple of weeks before even realising if there were mistakes. Now, with 3D printing, it [can] still take days to finish but it is much less than the six to eight weeks. ‘Ten there is the trend for PCB inspection.
We have a customer who is building automated optical inspection systems and who previously used only traditional 2D imaging. Now it’s getting more popular to have 3D cameras or 3D imaging for PCB inspection. A customer told us at the beginning [the results were] “only ok”, but one of their competitors used 3D imaging in their marketing, and it turned out that the end customers had a requirement for it. Now the customer says “we really only want to have 3D for PCB inspection.” Tey are selling a lot of sensors and a lot of machines.’
Automation Technology’s C2 series of 3D cameras feature GigE vision interface
Future developments With the technology behind 3D imaging becoming more sophisticated in recent years,
50 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • October/November 2018
has it now reached its pinnacle? Henzler believes not. ‘Tere are two paths that need to be
followed to make 3D systems become more user friendly,’ he said. ‘One is to increase the resolution or field of view. Tere will be developments in the next few years for high resolution, high fields of view, faster sensors that really can image quickly and precisely. Te second part is to make the soſtware and configuration more user-friendly, so that the system integrator or final customer can easily and quickly develop the application or put it into place, to reduce the time to market. I’d like this to be a short-term development; I think it needs to be maybe in the next two years. ‘Oſten 3D SW algorithms are present
just in a programming library, and one has to program everything around. Te task is to make that much easier for the system integrator and to be able to configure and calibrate the system and its parameters quickly and put it into place. Especially on the soſtware side, this is an important task because 3D is different from 2D, not just because it’s a dimension more; there are completely different algorithms used to process these images. ‘We are already seeing some products
where ease of use takes centre stage. A good example is the LMI Gocator that focuses on an easy user interface and is constantly evolving making difficult applications easy. For the challenge of high-speed and higher resolution needs, we see strong developments from our partner Automation Technology.’
@imveurope
www.imveurope.com
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