New-Tech Europe Magazine | Dec 2017

Greater flexibility and better performance for multi-view inspections Use the processing power of multiple smart cameras in parallel for high-performance applicationsconnectors for electronics.

Cécile Jacquin, Cognex Inc.

The In-Sight ® VC200 from Cognex is a high-performance system that maintains its extremelyhigh inspectionspeed however many smart cameras are connected to it. In fact, it actually gets faster with each additional camera. Powerful In-Sight tools with workflow diagrams and spreadsheets make setting up multi-camera applications easier than ever before. Platform-independent HMI technology allows for monitoring and controlling the application using a web- browser without needing to install special hardware or software. Industrial applications require machine vision using multiple

cameras for what are known as multi view inspections. Only in this way is it possible to inspect objects from different viewpoints following a defined, pre-specified procedure, i.e. the individual cameras are connected interdependently. For example: After camera 1 has detected and identified an object (bottle, tube, glass etc.), the system’s other multi-view cameras 2, 3 and 4 can check for particular specified critical features according to the system configuration. Multi-view inspections are becoming more and more important in a variety of industries: in the food industry, in beverage filling, in the automotive sector and in general mechanical engineering situations, wherever continuous inspection of food, components, assemblies or

packaging is required for quality assurance. Elegant solution to challenging requirements With complex inspections of this kind, the challenge is two-fold: users need to coordinate and combine the results from multiple cameras that are needed to perform the task; and data processing for the system as a whole often forms a bottleneck for the required rapid test sequence. Conventional multi-camera systems use “dumb” cameras attached to a controller. These dumb cameras lack their own processing power – so they share the processing power of the controller. As more cameras are added to the system performance of the system reduces, and limits multi-camera systems to simple

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