Teledyne Dalsa

If you haven’t incorporated machine vision on your automation line or machines recently, you could be missing out on some powerful and cost-effective solutions that you probably didn’t know were out there. Take it from Andy Wright, Manager of Automation Engineering at ISTECH (Dover, PA), which provides turnkey custom automation solutions for a variety of industries using advanced computer and automation technologies.

Image analysis and machine vision have a common goal of extracting information from digital images. They differ mostly in what objects or parts they are applied to and the type of information extracted. Both use image processing - computations that modify an input image to make image elements more obvious. As examples, image processing is used to compensate for variations in lighting and to enhance the edges of objects. Machine vision is primarily concerned with locating, identifying, measuring and inspecting manufactured parts such as fasteners (bolts, screws, etc.). Image analysis is primarily concerned with measuring natural or non-manufactured parts and patterns. Applications include classifying and counting biological cells and characterising particles, textures or foams.