Labview and vision inspection

[Rick B.]

Is anyone using Labview to automate their vision inspection ?

I want to be able to inspect PCB's post reflow semiautomatically.

If so what hardware, drivers, software etc is available ?

Any pointers to information on this subject greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Rick B.
Email: Double the first A or Yahoo instead.

[Enrique]

Rick;

The best tool for that is IMAQ for LabVIEW.

The other thing you will need is a framegrabber. I am assuming you have the camera and everything. If not, there is also a camera advisor.

Regards;
Enrique

[Andrew Buchan]

Hi Rick,

I'm currently using the LabVIEW Vision Development system to inspect very
detailed LCD's on some of my employers central heating controls. Note that
this is not a 'mobile phone' type of LCD (an array of pixels), rather it
contains a mix of traditional 7-segment displays and individually masked
icons that are either on or off.

The approach I took was to perform a few design of experiments to determine
the key process variables (in my case UUT location accuracy, lighting level,
image contrast) and equally importantly to quantify them. The test fixture
was designed to minimise the effects of these.

I used a simple PAL monochrome camera through a NI PCI-1409 mage aquisition
board. Lens selection is critical in getting the maximum resolution over the
reg
ion of inspection.

The vision development system contains a large amount of VI's, including
those for reading 7-segment displays, pattern-matching, and measurement
which will suit most applications.

One final word of warning though - most VI's will only work well on a
correctly located image - I had to develop a 'calibration' routine which
extracted the main region of interest (ROI) prior to other inspection tasks.

If you need more detailed info please just let me know
a.buchan@ntlworld.com )

All the best

Andy


"Rick B." wrote in message
news:840glucihjagvprcb1ka9kq2pg03j3ikvc@4ax.com...
> Is anyone using Labview to automate their vision inspection ?
>
> I want to be able to inspect PCB's post reflow semiautomatically.
>
> If so what hardware, drivers, software etc is available ?
>
> Any pointers to information on this subject greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
> Rick B.
> Email: Double the first A or Yahoo instead.

[Rick B.]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2002 15:16:54 -0500 (CDT), Enrique wrote:

>Rick;
>
>The best tool for that is
>IMAQ
>for LabVIEW.
>
>The other thing you will need is a framegrabber.
>I am assuming you have the camera and everything. If not, there is
>also a <camera
>advisor.
>
>Regards;
>Enrique

Thank you.

Your information and pointers were of considerable help.

I am only at the point of comparing my options at present. We have had
excellent results with Labview in our test applications, I wanted to
explore the vision possibilities.
Rick B.
Email: Double the first
A or Yahoo instead.

[Rick B.]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2002 22:14:42 +0100, "Andrew Buchan"
wrote:

>Hi Rick,
>
>I'm currently using the LabVIEW Vision Development system to inspect very
>detailed LCD's on some of my employers central heating controls. Note that
>this is not a 'mobile phone' type of LCD (an array of pixels), rather it
>contains a mix of traditional 7-segment displays and individually masked
>icons that are either on or off.
>
>The approach I took was to perform a few design of experiments to determine
>the key process variables (in my case UUT location accuracy, lighting level,
>image contrast) and equally importantly to quantify them. The test fixture
>was designed to minimise the effects of these.
>
>I used a simple PAL monochrome camera through a NI P
CI-1409 mage aquisition
>board. Lens selection is critical in getting the maximum resolution over the
>region of inspection.
>
>The vision development system contains a large amount of VI's, including
>those for reading 7-segment displays, pattern-matching, and measurement
>which will suit most applications.
>
>One final word of warning though - most VI's will only work well on a
>correctly located image - I had to develop a 'calibration' routine which
>extracted the main region of interest (ROI) prior to other inspection tasks.
>
>If you need more detailed info please just let me know
> a.buchan@ntlworld.com )
>
>All the best
>
>Andy
>
>
Thank you.

Sounds like you have developed quite a system. This may be a bit
beyond our in house capabilities, but it is good to know that it can
indeed be done.
Rick Barry
Manufacturing & Test Engineering
Warner Power LLc

[Jack_A.]

Rick -

NI sells framegrabbers and image processing software (NI-Vision) which will allow you to automate your vision inspection in LabVIEW. Of course, you will also need a camera, camera fixture, lighting, etc. all dependent upon your unique environment. Our framegrabbers allow you to bring the images into your PC to be processed or saved. Our driver (NI-IMAQ) comes with the hardware and is also available form our website.
On the image processing side, Vision Builder is a great development tool which allows you to interactively design your image processing steps and then will build LabVIEW code for you. There is also NI-Vision which is the image processing toolkit for LabVIEW. Here you have access to many different algorithms and functions unique to image
processing.

Check out this website for some other use cases for our machine vision tools:

http://amp.ni.com/niwc/imaq/imaqapps.jsp?node=1286

The one titled "Locating features on a printed circuit board" might be particularly interesting to you.

Hope this helps.

Jack Arnold
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[wieger]

Hello Rick,

I'm working at Philips CFT (Centre for industrial technology) in the group
Industrial Visoin
See:
Philips Industrial Vision
http://www.cft.philips.com/industrialvision/

We have our own vision boards and intelligent camera.
For application design we developed the PROMISE library for LabVIEW

SEE:
http://www.cft.philips.com/industrialvision/products/promise.pdf

This PDF is somewhat old for more information you should contact
CFT.Industrial.Vision@philips.com
Or reply to this news item then I'll read it.





good luck with it

Wieger Markvoort


"Rick B." wrote in message
news:840glucihjagvprcb1ka9kq2pg03j3ikvc@4ax.com...
> Is anyone using Labview to automate their vision inspection ?
>
> I want to be able to inspect PCB's post
reflow semiautomatically.
>
> If so what hardware, drivers, software etc is available ?
>
> Any pointers to information on this subject greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
> Rick B.
> Email: Double the first A or Yahoo instead.

[Rick B.]

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002 15:32:58 -0500 (CDT), "Jack A."
wrote:

>Rick -
>
>NI sells framegrabbers and image processing software (NI-Vision) which
>will allow you to automate your vision inspection in LabVIEW. Of
>course, you will also need a camera, camera fixture, lighting, etc.
>all dependent upon your unique environment. Our framegrabbers allow
>you to bring the images into your PC to be processed or saved. Our
>driver (NI-IMAQ) comes with the hardware and is also available form
>our website.
>On the image processing side, Vision Builder is a great development
>tool which allows you to interactively design your image processing
>steps and then will build LabVIEW code for you. There is also
>NI-Vision which is the image processing toolkit for
LabVIEW. Here you
>have access to many different algorithms and functions unique to image
>processing.
>
>Check out this website for some other use cases for our machine vision
>tools:
>
>http://amp.ni.com/niwc/imaq/imaqapps.jsp?node=1286
>
>The one titled "Locating features on a printed circuit board" might be
>particularly interesting to you.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>Jack Arnold
>Application Engineer
>National Instruments

Thank you.

This information was very helpful. However, I do not believe I have
the time or expertise to develope this in house.

Do you know if there is any intergration with some of the video
inspection equipment offered by companies such as OC White,
Scienscope, Vision Technologies (SuperVision) or others ?

My preference would be to purchase an off the shelf system and then
intergrate it into the Labview enviroment.

If you have any other suggestions or pointers, I would be greatful for
them.


Rick Barry
Manufacturing & Test Engineering
Warner Power LLc

[Rick B.]

On Thu, 15 Aug 2002 14:36:15 +0200, "wieger"
wrote:

>Hello Rick,
>
>I'm working at Philips CFT (Centre for industrial technology) in the group
>Industrial Visoin
>See:
>Philips Industrial Vision
>http://www.cft.philips.com/industrialvision/
>
>We have our own vision boards and intelligent camera.
>For application design we developed the PROMISE library for LabVIEW
>
>SEE:
>http://www.cft.philips.com/industrialvision/products/promise.pdf
>
>This PDF is somewhat old for more information you should contact
>CFT.Industrial.Vision@philips.com
>Or reply to this news item then I'll read it.
>
>
>
>
>
>good luck with it
>
>Wieger Markvoort
>
>
Very nice application.

Is this an "off the shelf" set up with the hardware, or do you c
ustom
design the set up to the customers requests ?

Thank you.
Rick Barry
Manufacturing & Test Engineering
Warner Power LLc

[Labviewguru]

Rick,

There are a number of consultants available on the market that can help you with this application. I strongly suggest that for this instance, that you go ahead and put out a bit of an investment and hire someone to come in there, not only to setup your vision inspection, but to train you and your engineers in how to use, upgrade and program the system, as well as in how to be able to create your own system.

I recently did a contract of this exact nature. Once I completed the contract, the client was self sufficient, and able to proceed on their own.

However; I must warn you of a something. Never try to throw software at a hardware problem. Be sure you invest in the right hardware up front that is capable of delivering the images you need, so
that your inspection software has the easiest time of things.

NI's Vision Inspection software may be adequate for your application, but as I don't have enough information, I can't say for sure. I would suggest that you initially contact NI directly and have their sales department help you. If you need integration, they will tell you (hopefully) and probably even recommend someone near you that can help you.

Good luck.