Abstract: A system and method for utilizing a search tool that registers transformation of a trained pattern by at least four degrees of freedom to register the instance of a pattern in an arbitrary six-degree-of-freedom pose is provided. The search tool is first trained to recognize a plurality of versions of a trained pattern/fiducial that are incrementally transposed to induce differing levels of known aspect and shear. An object having several instances of the trained pattern located at known spacings and orientations therebetween is imaged by the trained search tool, and the located instances of the trained pattern are compared to expected instances of the trained pattern to measure relative six-degree-of-freedom orientation for the underlying object.

Abstract: A system and method for using a machine vision system to locate and register patterns in an object using range data is provided. The machine vision system includes an acquisition system for acquiring a range image of an object. The system also includes a machine vision search tool coupled to the acquisition system for locating an instance of a trained pattern in the image. The tool registering the trained pattern transformed by at least two translational degrees of freedom and at least one non-translational degree of freedom with respect to an image plane. The acquisition system preferably includes a three-dimensional camera.

Abstract: A system and method for estimating the position of an object in three dimensions uses two cameras interconnected with a machine vision search tool. The search tool is capable of registering transformation of a pattern in at least two translational degrees of freedom, along the image plane, and at least one non-translational degree of freedom along a camera axis perpendicular to the image plane. The tool can be a rotation/scale-invariant (RSIS) search tool. A nominal position for each camera's acquired image of the object is determined and a set of uncertainty vectors along each of the degrees of freedom is generated. The vectors are weighted, with the respective vectors along the camera axis being weighted more-highly than orthonormal vectors within the image plane. The weighted vectors are combined to define an error.

Abstract: A system and method for servoing robot marks using fiducial marks and machine vision provides a machine vision system having a machine vision search tool that is adapted to register a pattern, namely a trained fiducial mark, that is transformed by at least two translational degrees and at least one mon-translational degree of freedom. The fiducial is provided to workpiece carried by an end effector of a robot operating within a work area. When the workpiece enters an area of interest within a field of view of a camera of the machine vision system, the fiducial is recognized by the tool based upon a previously trained and calibrated stored image within the tool. The location of the work-piece is derived by the machine vision system based upon the viewed location of the fiducial. The location of the found fiducial is compared with that of a desired location for the fiducial. The desired location can be based upon a standard or desired position of the workpiece.

Abstract: A system and method for ascertaining blockage of one or more stencil apertures is provided. An analysis of pixels in an image of the stencil region that includes the aperture is made that includes determining the relative grayscale intensity of pixels acquired from the clean stencil and also the variance among nearby pixels. The grayscale and variance values for each pixel are combined to form a series of histogram groupings or bins, based upon levels. These values are used to compute parameters that represent how the apertures appear under the lighting conditions used to acquire the image, thereby allowing the informing of a decision function that estimates the probability that a given pixel represents unblocked aperture rather than solder paste.

Abstract: A system and method for counting objects or parts on a continuously moving conveyor, or other elongated surface, provides a camera and associated machine vision system that acquire/capture and analyze multiple, successive fields of view taken within an area of interest defined by the system. Each of the fields of view includes flanking right and left overlap zones with respect to adjacent fields of view. The overlap zones are defined to be at least as wide as the maximum width of a part being counted. The captured fields of view are stored within the system and analyzed in succession based upon a set of rules. These rules determine whether or not a particular part within the subject field of view is to be counted. More specifically, the rules are applied within the overlap zones for each field of view to determine whether or not to count the part.

Abstract: A system and method for homing, docking and tracking of one object with respect to another provides a camera for acquring images and a machine vision processor inter-connected with the camera. The machine vision processor includes a sacale-invariant and rotation-invariant pattern recognition application that retrieves stored images representative of the object being viewed that includes data representative of a fiducial within the object image. The stored image and its fiducial are compared to the acquired image. The image is aligned within the processor based upon a detected fiducial and the relative orientation and position of the object is determined based upon the acquired image. Data representative of the relative position and orientation is used to manipulate one of the objects so as to bring at least one of the objects to a predetermined position with respect to the other of the objects. The predetermined position can be a docked position or a following, on-station position, among others.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for image processing provides a memory having a plurality of individual parallel buffers constructed from random access memories (RAMs) for storing data related to a group of image pixels. The buffers each store a parallel, identical version of the image data so that an image processor can access data related to a given pixel in the overall data from each buffer simultaneously. An address expander for the buffer rows and buffer columns is used to convert a row and column address of a selected “central” pixel into a plurality of related pixel data addresses offset at predetermined distances from the selected pixel data's address. In this manner, the address expanders enable a group of related pixels, each in a different parallel buffer, to be accessed simultaneously, without requiring the processor to be interconnected with all of the buffers. This substantially reduces the complexity of processor interconnection design, while substantially enhancing processor speed.