Hand-held tire scanner
AssigneeSnap-On Equipment Srl A Unico Socio
InventorsAndrew Pryce, Björn Gustafsson, Kshitij Sisodia, Allen Pearson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A hand-held device for obtaining a three-dimensional topological surface profile of a tire, the device comprising: a base comprising an aperture; a light source arranged in use to generate an elongate pattern of light, and to project said pattern through the aperture onto a rolling surface of the tire; a detector arranged to image a region of the rolling surface of the tire; a plurality of pairs of guide wheels mounted on respective axles mounted on the base, wherein the guide wheels on adjacent axles are linked by gears; and a rotary encoder arranged to generate a signal corresponding to rotation of an axle.
Claims22
A hand-held device for obtaining a three-dimensional topological surface profile of a tire, the hand-held device comprising:
- a light source arranged in use to generate a pattern of light, and to project said pattern of light onto a surface of the tire;
- a detector arranged to image the surface of the tire;
- a plurality of guides linked by a linking assembly and arranged to generate a signal corresponding to movement of the hand-held device along the surface of the tire;
- and
- at least one processor configured to generate the three-dimensional topological surface profile of the tire using data obtained from an image of the surface of the tire and the signal generated by the guides.
A method of obtaining data for generating a three-dimensional topological surface profile of a tire, using a hand-held device, the method comprising:
- generating a pattern of light projecting said pattern of light onto a surface of the tire;
- imaging a region of the surface of the tire;
- moving the hand-held device over the surface of the tire on a plurality of guides, wherein guides of the plurality of guides are linked by a linking assembly;
- generating, by the guides, a signal corresponding to movement of the hand-held device along the surface of the tire;
- and
- generating the three-dimensional topological surface profile of the tire using data obtained from an image of the surface of the tire and the signal generated by the guides.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.