Method of and apparatus for optical imaging inspection of multi-material objects and the like
AssigneeBeltronics, Inc.
InventorRobert Bishop
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A novel method all of and apparatus for categorizing different material regions of an object-to-be inspected, by optical scanning of the object to produce a pixel image thereof, discriminating different pixel regions of the image corresponding to possibly different materials on the basis of color, and texture brightness measurements of the pixel regions and assigning preliminary likelihoods to such discrimination through with ambiguities; and comparing the measurements of the pixel regions with their local neighborhood surroundings in the image to assist in resolving said ambiguities and determining the material categorizations of the pixel regions with a high likelihood.
Claims39
A method of categorizing different material regions of an object-to-be-inspected, that comprises, optically scanning the object to produce a pixel image thereof;
- discriminating different pixel regions of the image corresponding to possibly different materials on the basis of color and brightness measurements of the pixel regions and assigning preliminary likelihoods to such discrimination though with ambiguities;
- and comparing the measurements of the pixel regions with their local neighborhood surroundings in the image to assist in resolving said ambiguities and to determine the materials categorization of the pixel regions with a higher likelihood.
A method of categorizing different material regions of an object-to-be-inspected, that comprises, optically scanning the object to produce a pixel image thereof;
- discriminating different pixel regions of the image corresponding to possibly different materials on the basis of color and brightness measurements of the pixel regions and assigning preliminary likelihoods to such discrimination though with ambiguities;
- and comparing the measurements of the pixel regions with their local neighborhood surroundings in the image to assist in resolving said ambiguities and to determine the materials categorization of the pixel regions with a higher likelihood, wherein values of ambiguity are established to distinguish the different material regions from one another, the values being computed as the ratio of the second most likely assigned material likelihood to the most likely assigned material likelihood at that region.
Apparatus for categorizing different material regions of an object-to-be-inspected having, in combination, an optical scanning camera system for inspecting and scanning successive regions of said object to produce pixel images thereof;
- means for measuring the color and brightness of characteristics of the successive pixel image regions to discriminate possibly different materials thereof, assigning preliminary likelihoods of their being such different materials, with ambiguities;
- and means for comparing the measurements of the pixel regions with their local neighborhood surroundings in the image and with a reference image, to assist in resolving said ambiguities and determining materials categorization of the pixel regions with a higher likelihood.
Apparatus for categorizing different material regions of an object-to-be-inspected having, in combination, an optical scanning camera system for inspecting and scanning successive regions of said object to produce pixel images thereof;
- means for measuring the color and brightness of characteristics of the successive pixel image regions to discriminate possibly different materials thereof, assigning preliminary likelihoods of their being such different materials, with ambiguities;
- and means for comparing the measurements of the pixel regions with their local neighborhood surroundings in the image and with a reference image, to assist in resolving said ambiguities and determining materials categorization of the pixel regions with a higher likelihood, wherein said scanning camera system comprises two cameras adapted to collect images of the object either from two different color filters or from two different focal planes, and wherein a combine card is provided having a plurality of reference look-up tables with means for comparing said characteristics of the pixel images from both cameras and assigning material likelihoods to those materials requiring information from both cameras, such as color and focal plane, wherein said combine card is provided with a further reference look-up table for enabling correlation of the likelihoods from each camera and the likelihoods determined jointly from both cameras and assigning preliminary likelihoods for each material based on both camera images together;
- and wherein a material classification card is further provided for comparing likelihoods and ambiguities of the regions and their respective local neighborhoods and for combining such information with predetermined information of said reference image, thereby to determine the material categorization of the region with higher likelihood, and wherein the material analysis card comprises median filters for measuring image values over regions, and lookup tables used to combine measured values and composite likelihood values, the filters being cascadable spaced filters adapted to process in arbitrarily large area, with delay lines associated with look-up tables for enabling resynchronization.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.