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US 11,232,578 B2Granted
Image processing system for inspecting object distance and dimensions using a hand-held camera with a collimated laser
AssigneeLibrestream Technologies Inc.
InventorsRadeon Shamilov, Scott Brewer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An image processing system for inspecting object distance and dimensions is disclosed. A calibrated hand-held camera with an integrated collimated laser is deployed in order to capture input images. The images are then processed in order to determine the object distance and related parameters such as displacements and surface dimensions.
Claims7
A method for optically determining the distance to and object using a hand held camera, the method comprising the steps of:
- acquiring using camera optics two sequential images of the target object wherein one of the images is a background image and the other of the images is a foreground image;
- illuminating the target object in the foreground image with a collimated laser source that is laterally displaced from the camera optics to form a laser blob on the foreground image;
- where the target object in the background image is not illuminated with the collimated laser source;
- analyzing the background and foreground images in order to extract the laser blob coordinates in the image domain;
- and calculating the distance to the object from the blob coordinates;
- wherein said analyzing uses a background differencing step which generates a difference image between the background and foreground images;
- wherein the analysing includes an iterative thresholding step where the threshold levels are incremented with each iteration until ad least one valid potential laser blob is identified;
- wherein said analyzing uses a step in which the intensity of one color channel in the foreground image is enhanced relative to other color channels where the enhanced color channel corresponds to a dominant color of the collimated laser source.
5 more elements
A method for optically determining the distance to and object using a hand held camera, the method comprising the steps of:
- acquiring using camera optics two sequential images of the target object wherein one of the images is a background image and the other of the images is a foreground image;
- illuminating the target object in the foreground image with a collimated laser source that is laterally displaced from the camera optics to form a laser blob on the foreground image;
- where the target object in the background image is not illuminated with the collimated laser source;
- analyzing the background and foreground images in order to extract the laser blob coordinates in the image domain;
- and calculating the distance to the object from the blob coordinates;
- wherein said analyzing uses a background differencing step which generates a difference image between the background and foreground images;
- wherein the analysing includes producing a list of potential laser blobs;
- and wherein a voting function is used to analyze the potential laser blobs based on at least one of their size, aspect ratio, and the original color in the foreground image, where the potential laser blob with the highest vote is selected and its center of mass is used to determine the distance from the camera to the illuminated object;
- wherein the voting function used is:
- V=aS−bA+cCG
- Where:
- a is the weight coefficient for the size of the laser blob;
- S is the size of the laser blob in pixel count;
- b is the weight coefficient for the aspect ratio;
- A is the aspect ratio of the laser blob;
- c is the weight coefficient for the overall color of the laser blob;
- CG is the color grade computed for the laser blob.
14 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.