Presence/Absence
As machine vision integrators, we provide a wide range of inspection solutions for applications including “presence or absence” verification. This inspection process is often used to capture product features and position details at critical points during the manufacturing and assembly process.

Measurement/Gauging
For product measurement and gauging applications, we provide vision solutions that capture critical product and part dimensions within micron-level tolerances, and at high speeds. Our measurement and gauging solutions incorporate the latest in real-time calibration, along with precision edge, and contour detection for exact part dimension analysis and matching.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
OCR is a vision-based identification process that converts text images into encoded text that is read by computers. OCR also converts text into strings of characters that are analyzed by computer algorithms to identify text characters that most closely match a target image or text code.

Optical Character Verification (OCV)
OCV determines the text quality and identifies potential text errors by comparing it against a target image. It measures the degree of similarity between an image and defined reference text characters.

Pattern Matching
Pattern matching extracts visual information from an image or a video stream in order to detect errors, count and measure objects, provide motion analysis, and compare an image’s unique pattern, color, shape, and size with target images.

Bar Code Reading
A barcode is a machine-readable image that is printed on a label and applied to a part or product (print-and-apply), or directly marked on a part, product or package (DPM). Barcodes contains encoded data about an item (unique identification or serialization), or encoded data about a batch or lot of items. Barcode scanners are typically used to capture and read bar code data in order to identify and track parts throughout manufacturing and assembly.

Pick & Place
Vision guided robots play an important role in today’s manufacturing and assembly processes. They locate parts to be picked up during production, and determine specific locations to place them. Without robots, product and part production requires precisely “fixtured” line set-ups to ensure items maintain correct position and orientation. Relying on fixtures can be expensive and time consuming to reconfigure when product, part types, and configurations are changed.

Poka Yoke Inspection
Poka Yoke is a mistake-proof inspection guidance process developed by Toyota that utilizes machine vision to improve production quality and efficiency while isolating product defects before they are passed along to the next step in a production operation.

Laser Profiling
Laser profiling captures the 3D surface of a part through triangulation. A laser beam is projected onto the part and is deformed by the height variance of the part. Through calibration, the relative position of the laser beam within the camera's image will correspond to a Z-height. By stitching together multiple images, a depth map of the whole part can be generated.

Multi-camera Stereo
Multi-camera stereo vision is used to capture 3-D image information based on multiple 2-D views of a part or product. Stereo vision is often used in robot navigation to estimate the distance (range) of a particular object from a camera. Image information is presented in a stereo disparity map created by matching corresponding image coordinates gathered from multiple cameras.

Photometric Stereo
Photometric stereo uses a number of images to reconstruct the object surface. The camera and the object are fixed, while the object is illuminated by turning on multiple light sources, one light at a time for each image. By knowing the orientations and positions of the various light sources, as well as the reflectance properties of the object, the surface can be reconstructed from the multiple images.

Depth From Focus
A three-dimensional object within the same scene has multiple points that are different distances to the camera. Configuring the optics of a camera to have a limited depth of field, such that at any given focal distance some object points will be in focus and others will not be. Acquiring multiple images at various focal distances, each object point can be displayed sharply in at least one image. Algrothims then determine which image has an object point that is projected sharply, and from there the distance to that point can be determined.

Time of Flight
The time-of-flight method is a hardware-based technology that uses a camera with an integrated light source. A sensor in the camera measures the time between when light is emitted by the camera, and the time when light reflected at the object’s surface returns to the camera. Different distances correspond to different time gaps as measured by the camera.