Vision Guide 8.0 Overview

Purpose of Vision Guide 8.0

Having its primary focus to provide the vision tools necessary to solve robot guidance applications, Vision Guide 8.0 is capable for many different types of machine vision applications. Some of the typical applications for Vision Guide 8.0 are locating and moving parts, part inspections, and gauging applications. In fact, almost any application that requires motion and vision integrated together is a good candidate application for Vision Guide 8.0 and EPSON robots.
One of the primary differences between Vision Guide 8.0 and other vision systems is that Vision Guide 8.0 was made as an integrated part of the EPSON robot systems. As a result you will find many features such robot to camera calibration procedures built into the Vision Guide 8.0 system. The net result is a great reduction in time to complete your vision-based application.

Features of Vision Guide

Some of the primary features/tools provided with Vision Guide 8.0 include the following:

• Integrated tools that support several camera orientations and calibrations. Calibration is made much simpler than with other robot vision systems and more accurate.
• GUI operation for quick prototyping where the prototype vision sequences can actually be used in the final application.
• Complete integration into the Epson RC+ 8.0 programming and development environment.
• Blob analysis tools that measure the size, shape, and position of objects with variations. There are also tools that count the number of holes within and tell the roundness of a given blob.
• Geometric pattern search that searches for a model based on geometric part features.
• Normalized correlation search tool that locates objects under varying light conditions using an advanced template matching technique.
• Edge detection tool that locates a specific edge with sub-pixel accuracy.
• LineFinder tool and ArcFinder tool that detect the edges of linear and circular objects easily and that enable accurate positioning.
• Polar Search is a high-speed angular search tool that can quickly measure the rotation of complex objects. This tool is very useful for vision guided robot pick and place applications.
• DefectFinder tool that performs a differential test using template images to detect image defects.
• Line and point tools that provide a mechanism for creating lines between points and measurement capabilities as well.
• Frame tool that allows all vision tools to be dynamically located based on a frame of reference.
• An object reference mechanism that allows one vision tool's position to be based on another vision tool's result thus saving hours of development time.
• Histogram charts provide a powerful mechanism for looking more closely at pixel data as well as setting proper thresholds for tools that require it.
• Statistics calculations are built in to provide mean, standard deviation, range, min and max values and a variety of other statistics that can be referenced for each vision tool at design-time or runtime.
• Automatic compensation for angular discrepancies in camera lens, camera, and robot peripherals.
• Support for color cameras and images by a ColorMatch tool and a ColorFilter operation.