Configurable Inspection Software for Product Design
By Jason Mulliner, Vision Product Manager, National Instruments -- Design News, July 6, 2003
To ensure success in a production environment, machine vision applications require a combination of flexible software and powerful hardware. With NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection, you can simplify your machine vision inspection and future application development challenges.
Using NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection, you can easily configure and benchmark a sequence of visual inspection steps and deploy the machine vision inspection system in an automated or laboratory environment. Not only can you perform powerful visual inspection tasks, but you can also make pass/fail decisions based on the results of individual tasks.
Based on the industry-proven NI Vision Development Module software, NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection visually tests assembled products from a variety of industries, including automotive and electronics components, pharmaceutical labels, and manufactured goods.
Image processing is typically the first function an engineer applies to an image before analysis. The new NI software includes many processing functions to filter noise, extract color planes, and perform thresholds.
In many machine vision applications, the object under inspection appears shifted or rotated within the image. Thus, for reliable inspection, both the regions of interest and the inspection measurements need to shift and rotate. NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection includes an intuitive coordinate system function, so you can obtain measurement data from a previous inspection task, build a coordinate system, and transfer the new system information to all subsequent inspection measurements. The regions of interest and the inspection measurements then shift and rotate with the object under inspection.
After image processing, you are ready to analyze. NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection includes many analysis functions to solve your application challenges. You can use caliper tools to measure distances in your image or the advanced geometric tools to curve.
You also have histograms to determine if specific components of a part are present—for instance, whether the cap on a bottle is present. Particle analysis finds and classifies specific particles or objects in your image.
When your application requires the complexity of an application development environment, you can convert the NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection script to LabVIEW and IMAQ Vision code. You can develop custom user interfaces, and integrate motion control, process control, and data acquisition in LabVIEW.
