Forecasting the development of the machine vision market

An important role of machine vision is to promote the promotion of industrial automation, which is the current development momentum of the domestic machine vision market. The user's demand is undoubtedly the most decisive among many factors in the popularization of machine vision. With the further development of China's manufacturing industry, the demand for machine vision has also been further improved. This is not only reflected in the market's capacity, but also reflected in the user's requirements for the quality and performance of machine vision products. At present, machine vision is being collected, analyzed, transmitted, judged, and gradually moved toward an open direction. This trend also indicates that machine vision will be further integrated with automation. Color vision systems and 3D monitoring Effects, embedded technology, hardware and software collocation, and solutions have become the latest technological trends in machine vision.

Machine vision also requires color

Although machine vision has undergone some revolutionary changes in the past few years, the field of color image processing is still developing at a relatively slow pace. One of the main reasons is that using color to solve a machine vision problem is always better than The grayscale image scheme requires more cost and processing power. However, this situation has changed in recent years.

With the application of vision in various industries such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and textiles, ordinary gray-scale vision systems cannot meet the needs of users. In some applications, it is necessary to use color machine vision functions such as color pattern matching, chromatographic analysis, print color detection, and box identification.

For the needs of color vision applications, NI provides hardware and software solutions. On the hardware, NI supports thousands of cameras from different vendors and can capture color images from various analog cameras, 1394 cameras, or Camera Link cameras. At the same time, NI provides powerful software support for images. Vision Builder AI and VDM both include a variety of color image processing functions, which can directly perform positioning, pattern matching, color segmentation, and chromatography analysis based on the original color image.

Cognex also recently introduced three color vision systems of the In-Sight Micro product line. The new In-Sight 1403C is a 2-megapixel (1600×1200 resolution) system that can perform high-resolution inspections of many color applications.

Color vision system products have always been the direction of ADLINK's research and development, but in ADLINK's view, color applications are only suitable for occasions where color applications are suitable. Compared to the grayscale vision system, there is no difference between the users and the users. Suitable for. For example, in the medical industry, high-level grayscale image processing is the first choice for X-ray image analysis, and for endoscopic pathological analysis, color image processing becomes necessary. Therefore, the color vision system, because the imaging system involves a relatively complex, large amount of data (information), the image processing algorithm requires a higher limit in the development of a few years ago, the vision system without gray analysis is successfully used, and In the past few years, it will get a rapid development after overcoming technical bottlenecks.

Increased demand for 3D inspection applications

In the past, users may only need the effect of 2D, and now more and more users are beginning to demand 3D detection effects. SICK's 3D vision sensor is developed following the needs of users. The Ranger C product line uses camera connection technology to connect to a PC, which simplifies the integration process and increases the acquisition rate. In 3D mode, Ranger C collects about 30,000 images per second. Each image contains 1,536 high-quality 3D coordinates, equivalent to 45 million 3D points per second.

Embedded-based products will become mainstream

As early as a few years ago, some experts predicted that embedded-based products will gradually replace board-based products as the mainstream form of machine vision products.

In recent years, the development of machine vision has mainly focused on two aspects of intelligence and integration. On the one hand, with the continuous improvement of hardware processing capabilities, engineers are able to adopt more advanced visual algorithms to solve complex visual problems. On the other hand, the demand for automation applications has gradually led the development of machine vision systems from traditional PC-based board-based products to the collection, analysis, and judgment of embedded systems. Embedded-based products will gradually replace boards. Card products. Most of the embedded operating systems are based on C language. The use of C high-level language for embedded system development is a basic work that can improve work efficiency and shorten the development cycle, and it is mainly developed. The product has high reliability, good maintainability, and is convenient for continuous improvement and upgrading.

In industrial inspection machines, users are also more inclined to use embedded devices with real-time operating systems. This eliminates the need for a separate IT department. This allows for better independence and reliability in actual operations. Some experts pointed out that smart cameras and high-performance embedded vision processing systems will occupy a major share of the visual hardware market in the future. National Instruments has recently released a new embedded machine vision system that helps manufacturing engineers and system integrators quickly establish high-speed real-time machine vision systems for applications such as product classification, assembly verification, and package inspection.

Software status is improving

A popular explanation of machine vision is to use machines instead of human eyes for measurement and judgment. With the development of embedded processor technology, the processing power of visual processing hardware has been increasingly enhanced, and at the same time, it has also brought about an increase in the status of software. Under the condition of certain image quality, the quality of the processing software and the image algorithm can directly determine the correctness of the judgment structure. Therefore, the position of the visual software in the entire system is crucial.

From the practical application of machine vision applications as an optical-mechanical one, the decisive factor for success is always an assessment of overall strength. Nowadays, the focus of competition in machine vision is no longer limited to the hardware itself, but more to the software with which it is paired. It is for this reason that, in addition to continuing to invest in motion control and system platforms, ADLINK has gradually begun to transform its role as a system integration solution provider. In terms of image processing software, it began to cooperate with Euresys Belgium in 1998 and has accumulated a large number of customers and mature applications.

National Instruments also provides engineers with the appropriate software platform for different applications. For precision equipment manufacturing, laboratory vision processing and other applications, NI provides a powerful visual development module VDM. The vision development module can support development in LabVIEW, VC, VB and other platforms. It contains hundreds of powerful visual tools and can accurately measure, position and match patterns. It is suitable for professional visual system developers. For vision applications in industrial production lines, NI offers Vision Builder AI, a flexible and easy-to-use configuration software platform. Vision Builder AI also has hundreds of common visual processing tools built-in. Users can solve most of the visual applications without programming. It is suitable for non-professional machine vision terminal users to develop flexible visual applications.

Cognex introduces In-Sight Explorer 4.3 software and EasyBuilder? The configuration environment provides six new vision tools and 22 filters. In addition, support for the CC-link and MC Protocol communication protocols has been added to a large number of communication functions in In-Sight vision systems. These two protocols are mainly used in Mitsubishi Electric's automatic sequencer.

Inseparable solution

The development of machine vision technology has been inseparable from industrial automation. Machine vision hardware and software products have gradually become an essential part of all stages of production and manufacturing, which puts forward higher requirements for system integration. Industrial automation companies require an integrated industrial automation system that can work in concert with a test or control system, rather than stand-alone vision applications. At present, more and more companies have put forward requirements for machine vision to work with existing production lines or test and control systems. This requires that machine vision vendors not only provide independent visual products, but also provide integration with industrial automation systems. The complete solution.

In the production line of a manufacturing company, the machine vision system not only needs to be used in conjunction with the on-site control system, but also the connection to the factory information system. The general vision system supplier often only provides the vision solution, but has left its integration with the industrial automation system to the integrator or end user. NI provides a unified software environment and a variety of modular hardware platforms for industrial automation, such as programmable automation controllers (PACs), industrial touch screens, and distributed I/O based on deterministic Ethernet. Users can realize machine vision, motion control, human-machine interface and data acquisition functions on LabVIEW, a graphical development platform specially designed for engineers. At the same time, LabVIEW's strong compatibility can also ensure that the system seamlessly connects to remote databases and enterprise management systems, and build a complete automation platform with minimal cost.