Two articles on 3D machine vision

Control Engineering magazine usually has good machine vision articles, and the May 2013 edition is no exception. “Quality control measurements for smooth surfaces” is a light introduction addressing the use of a “laser camera hybrid system”. Think of it as an appetizer before diving in to the delicious meaty steak that is “3D vision system performs rope wear analysis”.

The latter article describes a system using three camera-laser pairs to obtain continuous, (okay, not truly continuous, but sampling at a high frequency,) data about the surface for of wire rope. Then they shine the laser longitudinally on the rope and discuss what data that provides. There are also some good links to related material, so all-in-all, there’s plenty to chew on.

I can’t help thinking though that Bytewise does much the same thing with their Profile360 system for monitoring continuous extrusions. But perhaps the Bytewise software didn’t provide all the information that was needed.

Good articles, all the same.