METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING GRAPHICAL MACHINE VISION CONTENT FOR DISTRIBUTION VIA A NETWORK
A method and system is provided for viewing machine vision information. The machine vision information includes machine vision data representing a sequence of machine vision processing steps. The machine vision information pertaining to a machine vision process on a given machine vision processor is produced. The machine vision information is displayed at a device remotely located from the given machine vision processor. A selection interface is provided on the device to allow a user to view the machine vision data corresponding to at least one stage of the machine vision processing.
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1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to machine vision systems and graphical content thereof.
2. Description of Background Information
Machine vision techniques are used in applications including character recognition, industrial inspection of manufactured objects, robot guidance systems, radiology, remote sensing and detecting, and others.
Currently, machine vision applications involve the extraction of vision-related information by obtaining signals representing an image, and then performing processing on those signals. This is performed by a machine vision process which is included in a machine vision device. The machine vision process can comprise one or more machine vision tools which may provide interactive diagnostic data to a local display device. The diagnostic data is information about the currently running tool. The information may be displayed as text data, such as measurements or message strings, or in graphic form. The interactive diagnostic data aids a user in understanding the performance of the machine vision tool.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONA method and system is provided for viewing machine vision information. The machine vision information includes machine vision data representing a sequence of machine vision processing steps. The machine vision information pertaining to a machine vision process on a given machine vision processor is produced. The machine vision information is displayed at a device remotely located from the given machine vision processor. A selection interface is provided on the device to allow a user to view the machine vision data corresponding to at least one stage of the machine vision processing.
The present invention is further described in the detailed description which follows, by reference to the noted drawings by way of non-limiting exemplary embodiments, in which like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout the several views of the drawings, and wherein:
Each of the machine vision devices includes at least one machine vision tool 102 having a diagnostic capability, and may optionally include a storage device 108, which may include, for example, computer memory, a disk drive including a disk, or any other suitable storage device.
The diagnostic capability provides a user with the ability to selectively view results of processing performed by the machine vision process at discrete times within the process. For example,
In one embodiment of the invention, the diagnostic capability sends a page, for example, a web page, of diagnostic information to a user as a result of running a machine vision tool.
A machine vision tool may be pre-configured to save web page information at specific times. For example, a machine vision tool may be configured to save a web page including diagnostic information every time the machine vision tool determines that an examined object fails to meet certain criteria. The machine vision tool may also be configured to generate a web page including diagnostics every time the tool is run or every nth time the tool is run, for example, every tenth time.
In one embodiment, the invention may be configured to write and overwrite diagnostic information to a predetermined web page so that a user can always query that page for the most recent diagnostics. Previous diagnostics may be moved to other web pages such that a user can select the previous diagnostics by selecting “previous diagnostics web page” from the current diagnostics web page by, for example, using a pointing device and clicking.
The machine vision tool may save the web page including diagnostic information in a local storage device, such as storage 108, or may save the web page on a remote storage device, such as storage 110. The remote storage device 110 may be connected to network 106.
Device 104 may include, for example, a web browser or a thin client.
A web browser displays data and is capable of communicating with other computers via a network, such as, for example, the Internet or an intranet. The web browser provides a user with a way to navigate, via, for example, hyperlinks which are selected by a pointing device, such as a computer mouse, or are typed in by the user. The web browser uses a transfer protocol, for example, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP), to transmit data of various content, such as, for example, Hypertext Transfer Markup Language (HTML) documents, plain text documents, graphic images, and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) documents. The web browser may also run programs, such as Java applets. The web browser may be, for example, Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Washington, Netscape Navigator by Netscape, or any other web browser.
A thin client utilizes a two or more tiered client server model. In this model, the client runs a minimal set of services that provide functionality to interface with at least one server. A web browser may be a thin client.
The diagnostic web page produced by the machine vision tool may preferably include a vector graphics language that provides high resolution images using plain text commands. Such a language is Scaleable Vector Graphics (“SVG”), which is an open-standard vector graphics language based on Extensible Markup Language (“XML”), and is emerging as a graphics standard for web browsers. SVG was developed by a working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). SVG files are compact and provide print-quality graphics. SVG images are usually smaller and more compressible than comparable JPEG or GIF images, and thus are quicker to download and easier to send across a network. SVG images may include overlay images which can be enabled or disabled in order to display or inhibit display of the overlay images.
In alternative embodiments, the web page produced by the machine vision tool diagnostics may instead include XML format or Vector Markup Language (“VML”), developed by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. VML is included in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, version 5.0, as well as other Microsoft products, such as Office 2000 and Powerpoint 2000.
The web browser or thin client may be capable of supporting XML, SVG or VML. Many browsers may be provided with a plug-in which allow it to support SVG format. The web page produced by the machine vision tool may include Java Script. The web page may also include a Java Applet. The Java Script and/or the Java Applet may be used to enable or disable different overlays on the image displayed by the web browser.
Alternate embodiments of the machine vision tool may also produce a web page having diagnostics in other formats, such as JPEG, which is a standard format developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group for graphical information, GIF, which is a standard for digitized images, defined by CompuServe, or Portable Network Graphics (“PNG”) format, which is described in Request for Comments: 2083, PNG (Portable Network Graphics) specification version 1.0, March, 1997, by T. Boutell, et al.
At P402, the machine vision tool device 102 receives a request for a web page from display device 104 through network 106.
At P404, machine vision tool computer 102 accesses storage 108 to determine the web pages that are stored in storage 108 and sends a list of the web pages as a web page to device 104. The web page includes links to each of the saved diagnostic web pages and may be in a format which is shown in
At P406, a user of device 104 selects one of the web page links causing a request for the web page to be sent to the machine vision tool computer 102, which receives the request for the web page.
At P408, machine vision tool computer 102 sends the diagnostic web page to device 104 which displays the web page.
Alternatively, a user may request a web page address which includes parameters, such that the web page address includes all information necessary to run a machine vision tool.
At P420, the machine vision tool device 102 receives a request for a web page from display device 104 through network 106. The request includes all parameters needed to run the machine vision tool via the web address information requested by the user.
At P422, the machine vision tool executes and produces, using the parameters provided by the user, the diagnostic information.
At P424, the machine vision tool sends the diagnostic information, in a form of a web page, to the user's browser for display to the user.
The user has requested, via, for example, a web browser, diagnostic information in a form of a web page. At P440, the machine vision tool receives the request for the diagnostic web page.
At P442, the machine vision tool sends the web page to the user's web browser.
The processing illustrated in
At P404, storage device 110 sends a web page including a list of the saved diagnostic web page links to device 104 which displays the list of diagnostics in an output, for example, as shown in
At P406, the user selects the diagnostic web page via, for example, a pointing device, such as a computer mouse and the request for the web page is sent to storage device 110.
At P408, storage device 110 sends the diagnostic web page to device 104 for display.
At P502, the machine vision tool is executing.
At P504, a check is made to determine whether a saving event occurred. As mentioned above, the saving events are pre-configured. If no saving event occurred, the machine vision tool continues to execute. Otherwise, at P506, diagnostic information is saved in a form of a web page to a storage device. The storage device may be local storage device 108, for example, or remote storage device 110, via network 106.
At P508, a check is made to determine whether the machine vision tool should continue executing. If yes, at P502, the machine vision tool continues to execute. Otherwise, at P510, the machine vision tool is stopped.
At P602, the machine vision tool is executing.
At P604, a check is made to determine whether a saving event occurred. As mentioned above, the saving events are pre-configured. The saving events trigger the saving of diagnostic information in a web page format.
If a saving event has not occurred, the machine vision tool continues to execute, at P602. If a saving event occurred, then at P606, diagnostic information is saved in a form of a web page either to local storage device 108 or remote storage device 110.
At P608, an e-mail message is sent to a pre-designated location. The e-mail message contains pointers or links to the saved diagnostic information. For example,
At P610, a check is made to determine whether the machine vision tool should continue execution. If the tool should continue execution, execution continues at P602. Otherwise, at P612, execution stops.
At P702, either machine vision tool computer 102 or storage device 110 receives a request for the diagnostic web page.
At P704, a web page including a list of saved diagnostic web page links is sent to device 104.
At P706, a user selects one of the diagnostic web pages from a screen, such as shown in
P708 is an optional act. Most browsers send identifying information. In such a case, P708 would not be needed. However, the machine vision tool may require some additional information from the browser, for example, information about pugins. In this case, act P708 would be performed to obtain the additional information
At P710, a check is made to determine whether the browser can support a default format of the web page. For example, if the default format includes SVG graphics, and the browser supports SVG graphics, then at P714, the web page is sent to device 104 and is displayed by the browser. If the check at P710 determines that the browser cannot support the default format of the web page, a determination is made as to what format of the web page is supported by the browser and at P712, the format of the web page is converted to a format supported by the browser and sent to device 104 for display by the browser, at P714.
If the machine vision tool is configured to store diagnostic information to a specific web page address and the web browser user requests the diagnostics information by requesting the specific web page, the machine vision tool processing is as shown in
At P720, the machine vision tool computer or storage device 110 receives the request for the diagnostic web page.
Acts P722 through P728 correspond to acts P708 through P714, respectively, of
As mentioned earlier, the illustrated embodiment produces a diagnostic web page including SVG format, which includes overlay images that can be enabled or disabled from displaying on a display by an SVG capable browser.
At
Each of the overlays may represent a result of a different step of the machine vision tool. Thus, for example, a user could view the results of different steps of the machine vision tool's analysis by choosing selected overlays for viewing on a browser.
As mentioned earlier, other formats can be included in the web page. For example, images can be displayed in JPEG format. When JPEG format is used, each time a user selects overlay information via controls 1002, a request is sent to either machine vision tool computer 102, having storage device 108, or to remote storage device 110, requesting a JPEG image having the selected overlay images appearing in the image and the deselected overlay images not appearing in the image.
Flash format, by Macromedia, is an example of another format that can be used to create a diagnostics web page for viewing via a browser capable of supporting the Flash format via, for example, a plug-in.
As described above, the overlaid information may include graphics and textual information. Further, the diagnostic text may also be plain text on a web page and not overlaid.
The processing as described above may be performed via software, hardware, firmware, or any combination of the above. Any data handled in the processing or created as a result of the processing can be stored in any memory as is conventional in the art. By way of example, such data may be stored in a temporary memory, such as in the RAM of a given computer system or subsystem. In addition, or in the alternative, such data may be stored in longer-term storage devices, for example, magnetic discs, rewriteable optical discs, and so on. For purposes of the disclosure herein, a computer-readable media may comprise any form of data storage mechanism, including such existing memory technologies as well as hardware or circuit representations of such structure and of such data. Such computer-readable media may include a program or programs for a device including a processor and storage to carry out the program processes.
While the invention has been described with reference to certain illustrated embodiments, the words which have been used herein are words of description, rather than words of limitation. Changes may be made, within the purview of the appended claims, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention in its aspects. Although the invention has been described herein with reference to particular structures, acts and materials, the invention is not to be limited to the particulars disclosed, but rather extends to all equivalent structures, acts, and materials, such as are within the scope of the appended claims.
Claims
1-20. (canceled)
21. Apparatus comprising:
- a remote device capable of being located remotely from a machine vision device, the remote device including a remote display configured to receive and to display given machine vision diagnostic data about a given machine vision tool on the machine vision device, the given machine vision diagnostic data, as displayed by the remote device, including plural discrete results of a given machine vision process of the given machine vision tool at times within the given machine vision process;
- the remote display interface being preconfigured to cause the remote display to have limited access to display select information from the machine vision device, the select information displayed when the remote display is located remotely from the machine vision device including the given machine vision diagnostic data; and
- a selection interface configured to allow a user to select, for display on the remote display via a display remote from the machine vision device, from among representations of the plural discrete results, less than all the plural discrete results in accordance with the selection via the selection interface.
22. The apparatus according to claim 21, further comprising the machine vision device including a set of machine vision tools, the machine vision tools being configured to carry out respective machine vision processes.
23. The apparatus according to claim 22, further comprising a data provider configured to provide the given machine vision diagnostic data about the given machine vision tool.
24. The apparatus according to claim 23, wherein the machine vision device comprises a machine vision tool including a diagnostic capability mechanism including the data provider.
25. The apparatus according to claim 23, wherein the machine vision diagnostic data includes interactive diagnostic data about the given machine vision tool.
26. The apparatus according to claim 25, wherein the machine vision tool with the diagnostic capability mechanism includes a ball grid array (BGA) finder tool configured to ascertain a description of a BGA device from an image of the BGA device and information about the physical size of pixels.
27. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the remote device is located remotely from the machine vision device by separating the devices from each other via a network.
28. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the selection interface is at the same location as the remote device.
29. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the plural discrete results include results to be displayed by the remote device as one or more overlay images.
30. The apparatus according to claim 29, wherein the plural discrete results include results also include text.
31. The apparatus according to claim 21, further including a notification mechanism configured to notify a user of an existence of the given machine vision diagnostic data, the notification mechanism including an email sender to send an email to the user, the email including a link to an Internet browser accessible web page.
32. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the remote device includes a thin client.
33. The apparatus according to claim 21, wherein the given machine vision tools includes a diagnostic setting configured to save machine vision diagnostic information based on a set of configuration parameters.
34. The apparatus according to claim 33, wherein the configuration parameters indicate the machine vision diagnostic information of the given machine vision tool is to be saved upon each inspection failure or the given machine vision tool.
35. A method comprising:
- providing a remote device capable of being located remotely from a machine vision device, the remote device including a remote display configured to receive and to display, when the remote device is located remotely from the machine vision device, given machine vision diagnostic data about a given machine vision tool on the machine vision device, the given machine vision diagnostic data, as displayed by the remote device, including plural discrete results of a given machine vision process of the given machine vision tool at respective discrete times within the given machine vision process;
- providing a remote display interface preconfigured to provide the remote display with limited access to display select information from the machine vision device the select information being displayed when the remote device is located remotely from the machine vision device, and the select information including the given machine vision diagnostic data; and
- presenting to a user plural selectable computer screen displayed representations of the plural discrete results, and accepting from the user a selection for display on the remote display of less than all the plural discrete results in accordance with the selection.
36. The method of claim 35, further including providing a machine vision device including a set of machine vision tools, the set of machine vision tools including the given machine vision tool, the machine vision tools being configured to carry out respective machine vision processes.
37. The method of claim 36, further comprising providing the given machine vision diagnostic data about the given machine vision tool.
38. Apparatus comprising:
- a remote device interface preconfigured to cause a remote display to display given machine vision diagnostic data about a given machine vision tool on the machine vision device, the given machine vision diagnostic data, as displayed by the remote device, including plural discrete results of a given machine vision process of the given machine vision tool at times within the given machine vision process;
- the remote display interface being preconfigured to cause the remote display to have limited access to display select information from the machine vision device, the select information displayed when the remote display is located remotely from the machine vision device including the given machine vision diagnostic data; and
- a selection interface configured to allow a user to select, for display on the remote display via a display remote from the machine vision device, from among representations of the plural discrete results, less than al the plural discrete results in accordance with the selection via the selection interface.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 13, 2011
Publication Date: Dec 22, 2011
Applicant: COGNEX CORPORATION (Natick, MA)
Inventors: Raymond A. Fix (Natick, MA), Aaron S. Wallack (Natick, MA)
Application Number: 13/159,086
International Classification: G06F 3/048 (20060101); G06F 15/16 (20060101);