Machine Vision Project Suggestions

[Hello World]

Hey guys,

I'm working on a project for visual inspection of pills and we're currently considering the CVS 1454 for hardware implementation.

I wanted to know if there's anything else that we can consider that would be able to use more than 3 cameras, but maintain the capability of supporting camera resolutions up to 1280x1024 and preferably the same frame rate of up to 100 fps. Our goal is to have 100% view of pills spread out on a 15 cm x 15 cm plate (possibly larger).

Would any PCI or USB hardware meet this requirement? Perhaps multiple PCI cards? We're still in the research stages of the project and would appreciate any suggestions regarding the image aquisition hardware and the cameras that would better suite the job.

The software we're currently working with is LabView 8.2 (which can be upgraded to 8.5) with the Vision Development Module.

Thanx a bunch.

[TiTou]

Hello,

Have you use a CVS for another industrial application before ?
If yes you have certainly concidered that it is not a powerfull has a PC , so I don't think it will be able to perform even a simple inpesction on a 1280*1024 image at 100Hz, depending on the complexity of the inspection, you might get up to 10Hz.

As for the 3 cameras... well... as far as I know you can only connect 3 FireWire cameras on a CVS, the max rate of FireWire A is 400 Mbit/sec...
1280 x 1024 x 8bit per pixel x 100 frame per sec x 3 cameras =  3000 Mbit/sec !

Depending on which requirements is most important for your application I suggest you try to lower the specifications... 100 fps sounds a far too much to me, maybe 1280x1024 is not necessary...

Regarding the other possible hardware, you can put a FireWire board in a PC (up to 3 firewire port), this should faster than a CVS and also gives you the possibility to choose FireWire B (high data flow) or concider CameraLink camera which are faster but as well more expensive.

Good luck, I hope this helps

[mvorage]

Hello,

We did an experiment by connecting four cameras to the CVS by using a FireWire hub. This is possible, however you have to share the bandwidth. So, it's not possible to achieve the acquisition times you are looking for.

As mentioned before, you can increase the amount of FireWire cards. There are also FireWire cards with 2 separate chipsets. So, you'll have two times your bandwidth.

Kind regards,

Mark