Vision & Inspection Systems

The use of vision systems to perform complex identification and control tasks is increasing rapidly as the hardware becomes cheaper and software systems mature. Vision systems are ideally suited to non-contact measurement, inspection, placement and manipulation tasks, either stand-alone or as an integral part of a larger system.

Although the technology is becoming mainstream, there are details of implementation that must always be considered. In particular:

• Choice of vision technology:
  • colour or monochrome
  • camera resolution
  • camera type (line or frame scan)
• Careful consideration of lighting and environment
• Choice of software platform for vision algorithm development

With access to advanced software for rapid vision processing development, together with low-level tools for implementing custom processing, PTP are able to develop vision processing subsystems in a very cost-effective way that complements the low cost of modern camera hardware.

In addition, PTP are well placed to determine the appropriateness of vision systems to a particular problem: there has been a considerable growth in the availability of specialist optical sensors, and these are often able to perform the same job as a more general-purpose vision system at much lower cost.