Dynamic, interactive signaling of safety-related conditions in a monitored environment

A system for perceptibly indicating a condition associated with regions in a three-dimensional (3D) workspace including industrial machinery, the system comprising:

• a plurality of sensors distributed about the workspace, each of the sensors being associated with a grid of pixels for recording images of a portion of the workspace within a sensor field of view;
• a computer memory for storing (i) a plurality of images from the sensors and (ii) a model of the machinery and its permitted movements during performance of the activity;
• a source for generating perceptible signals;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• computationally generate, from the stored images, a 3D spatial representation of the workspace;
• identify a first 3D region of the workspace corresponding to space occupied by the machinery within the workspace augmented by a 3D envelope around the machinery spanning the permitted movements in accordance with the stored model;
• identify a second 3D region of the workspace corresponding to space occupied or potentially occupied, by a human within the workspace augmented by a 3D envelope around the human corresponding to anticipated movements of the human within the workspace within a predetermined future time;
• and
• operate the signal source to perceptibly indicate the condition associated with the first and second regions.