All the buzz these days is about laser micrometers and vision systems. If you visit a tradeshow or get any online advertisement, many companies are promoting these measuring methods.

Over the past decade manufacturers have increasingly turned to flexible, customizable automation platforms to meet the demands of high mix/low volume orders and ensure their long-term survival in a competitive manufacturing environment.

Demand for accurate parts delivered on tight schedules is increasing. To keep pace, technology is continually advancing, enabling manufacturers to do more in the same amount of time.

The successful application of machine vision technology involves an intricately and carefully balanced mix of a variety of elements.

In today’s manufacturing environment, automatic vision inspection has been widely applied in many different industries including semiconductor, electronics, food and beverage, pharmaceutical packaging, automotive, and many others.

In the past, the amount of processing power necessary to perform color-based machine vision applications was often an insurmountable hurdle. Even when manufacturers did offer color vision, they would typically convert images to grayscale prior to analysis—a strategy that significantly reduces precision and fails to detect edges defined by similar colors.

Lighting and lighting control is a critical component of any machine vision system since it has a massive influence on the signal to noise ratio and contrast in the images acquired.

The robotics industry is not slowing down. Last year the robotics industry shipped more robots to North America than ever before. And companies today are figuring out that they can utilize machine vision and robotics in many new applications.

The cameras, lenses and illumination used in a machine vision system all make significant contributions to the overall quality of the images that are produced. The rapid developments in CMOS image sensor technology over the last few years have created significant challenges for lens manufacturers. 

Lighting selection and setup play a critical role in the success of a machine vision application. Vision systems rely on specific types of lighting to optimize contrast or to highlight a specific feature of interest.