Illumination
Many years of experience show that this most critical element of a vision system is very often underestimated. It requires experience and extensive knowledge to select the appropriate illumination for a demanding task, as well as understanding why different types of illumination are best suited for specific applications. Even when equipped with this kind of expertise, an evaluation trial is typically a valuable step to gain confidence in the reliability of an approach. At STEMMER IMAGING, we maintain an evaluation laboratory with a wide selection of illumination equipment. This allows customers to either visit us and test illumination options with our engineers, or send samples in for us to undertake a feasibility study.
A crucial challenge when designing a lighting configuration for an application is to ensure that the variation of environmental light does not affect the inspection result. In practice, this means the design should consider all elements of the optical path, such as optical filters and lenses.
Heavy multi-stage preprocessing of image data is typically an indicator that the illumination approach should be re-evaluated. Optimising lighting – and therefore revealing properties physically – can often eliminate the requirement for costly and time consuming image preprocessing, while giving far better and more stable results.
As image sensors are not able to adapt to widely different environmental conditions like the human eye, an illumination set-up has to aid in highlighting the properties of the object considered as errors. Cameras do not actually see objects. They are recording the light reflected by objects. By properly controlling the illumination configuration, the appearance of objects seen by the camera can be controlled.
As an example, light is reflected differently from a ball bearing than from a flat white label or a printed circuit board. Therefore different illumination techniques are required for each.
In the early days of vision, illumination systems were often hand-made for each application. Nowadays, rather than trying to design and develop custom illumination systems, there are many benefits to using off-the-shelf illumination solutions:
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Cost-effective
saves time, money and R&D resources -
Reliable
reliable designs include thermal modelling to ensure a long service life. -
Proven
thousands of models in the field with minimal failures -
Repeatable
LED diode matching during manufacture ensures consistent intensity with even illumination. -
Large variety
many different devices and techniques are available