Utilising 3D Vision In The Real World

Photoneo are leading the way with quality 3D imaging data

Machine vision is having its boundaries pushed beyond the walls of a factory or laboratory, with 3D cameras such as the PhoXi 3D scanner being at the forefront of research such as that carried out by The Crop Department at the National Physics Laboratory. Real world problems, such as the constant need to improve agricultural yields to meet rising global demands, and increasing our efficiency to match the demands requires good quality data.

See the video below for a full explanation from Dr Richard Dudley explaining how analysing crops in 3D can help identify which wheat variety gives the greatest yield, or have tolerances to disease and drought.

 

Crops however have a fairly limited range of motion, so what about the need for accurate data on objects in motion? The PhoXi’s sister camera the Motioncam-3D is capable of providing similar level of detail using real time point-cloud based data within a fixed area. As demonstrated in the video below you can see it uses a custom CMOS sensor to constantly map in 3D with great precision.

 

A comprehensive bin picking solution

The rising demand for quality real time data of course goes hand in hand with demand for automation. By automating simple, repetitive tasks you can free your work force to do the jobs a robot can’t do, and increase your overall efficiency. Being experts in 3D imaging, Photoneo have approached this with their own proprietary Bin Picking Studio (BPS) utilising their 3D-Motion camera.

Whilst a specialist robotics programmer would ordinarily be required, the BPS is designed for ease of use, working seamlessly with a huge range of robotics manufacturers. Combined with CAD based object recognition to easily train a robot on how to approach each individual part.

Constant improvement

Cameras and imaging software are of course only as good as their drivers! Photoneo are committed to providing constant improvements to their software, so you know their solutions are future proof. Their recent release of 1.2 PhoXi control drivers as a great example of taking customer feedback to implement some important improvements.

If you have any questions about Photoneo’s 3D cameras or Bin Picking Studio (BPS), please get in touch so we can discuss your application further.

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