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Glossary

Machine Vision Primer
Commonly Used Terms in the World of Machine Vision

There a number of terms and figures mention throughout this site that someone new to the world of machine vision may be unfamiliar with. The following definitions should prove to extremely helpful while you educate yourself about machine vision.

Acquisition:
The process used to bring an image into the vision software.

CIVCore™ Vision Processing Engine:
The central software component up which all of our LOMAX™ vision applications are built.

Depth of Field:
The in-focus range of an imaging system. Measured from the distance behind an object to the distance in front of the object wherein all objects appearing are in focus.

Field of View:
The area which can be seen by a single camera.

HMI (Human Machine Interface):
Provides the interface through which the user interacts with the vision system software. In most CIVCore-run machines, a touch screen is used as the main avenue of interaction between the user and the vision system.

Image Analysis:
The process of locating and measuring specific features in an image. Image Processing: Modifying an image through mathematical calculations. The inspection system must process an acquired image in order to perform an inspection's prescribed tasks. Inspection: The processing and analysis required to tell if a part is good or bad (passes or fails)... Machine Vision: The automatic acquisition and analysis of images to check the quality of a part.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition):
OCR is the translation of optically scanned bitmaps of printed text characters into character codes that a computer can understand and use for whatever task is at hand, OCR tools allow the system to "read" printed characters located on the inspected product.

OCV (Optical Character Verification):
The OCV tool verifies that printed characters are correct by matching the characters to known characters stored in a font. An OCV code is inspected with a series of search tools - one for each character in the string to be inspected. Each OCV code is associated with a specific font.

PQV (Print Quality Verification):
PQV is used to verify that the printing on the item being inspected matches a model trained into the system. Using PQV, there is no requirement for a font set.

Rejector:
Device used to mechanically eject a faulty product from the line. Typically, bad product is blown off the line with a high pressure burst of air or knocked off the line with a mechanical kicker. Other reject options are available for special needs.

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification):
Technology that uses electromagnetic tags that can be stuck to or embedded into a product in order to uniquely identify that object, therefore, becoming an alternative to the bar code. The advantage of RFID is that it does not require direct contact or line-of-sight scanning and can be read remotely.

Threshold Masking:
Process of image manipulation used to ignore or modify parts of an image.