In the past, machine vision solutions have always been relegated to a niche group of vision experts who were tasked to create solutions specific to customers' needs. These solutions are invariably difficult to maintain, and most of the time, rigidly un-modifiable.
Today, customers' requirements on machine vision and image processing technology have changed. A growing number of customers, end users and machine vision system integrators alike are all looking for flexible, powerful and easy-to-maintain vision software that can be easily integrated with existing vision hardware. Improvements in vision technology have made vision hardware selection an easy process.
A wide selection of camera and efficient drivers has allowed image acquisitions to be simplified. Now, vision engineers face the challenges of creating customizable yet powerful software applications in less time.
This article aims to teach engineers how to harness the power of today's advance computing technologies (i.e. multi-core CPUs and high-bandwidth memory) for vision analysis and processing using LabVIEW; architect vision inspection programs that powerful yet easy to understand; and use interactive tools to create versatile machine vision inspection programs that are easily maintainable and upgradeable.
Scientific imaging vs.industrial machine
The arraying functions of vision inspection technology lie on opposing sides of the spectrum. The scientific imaging side typically consists of a frame grabber plugged into a PC or PXI chassis, and the images are processed using a programmable language like LabVIEW, C or VB.
On the other hand, industrial machine vision is done mostly with smart cameras or real-time industrial vision systems. Fussfree software configuration is one major prerequisite in industrial machine vision as these applications are typically handled by non-engineers. Industrial machine vision is usually developed using an interactively configurable ADE like NI Vision Builder Automated Inspection (VBAI).
Both groups of users have different sets of requirements when it comes to selecting vision inspection systems. Ruggedness is a key factor for many industrial users as their vision systems will be built either on or extremely close to the production line.
More often than not, the crew manning the production line will also be the ones operating the software program of the vision system. For scientific imaging, the set-up is similar to a data acquisition system. A high-resolution camera is used rather than the sensor, and the signal conditioning is replaced by light sources and optics for the camera.
Both systems rely on an acquisition device to capture and transmit the images to the system. These images are then analyzed using an image processing software.
The processed results are thereafter stored in a database for use at a later time. Researchers and developers usually apply their domain expertise in analysing these images through various software algorithms and have to constantly modify their software program to suit different application requirements.
It seems like software program development for vision applications is unavoidable, regardless of what type of vision inspection systems you adopt. Now, let us take a closer look at how you can to use some intuitive tools and techniques to create a powerful and efficient vision application.
