About This Webinar
It has often been said that using the right lighting and imaging can make or break a machine vision application. Low-angle lighting may bring out surface textures or useful shadows, backlighting provides a clean part outline, and polarization filters can reduce unwanted glare. These methods are all well known and widely used tools that have been around for decades. The higher end of such tools is the use of 3D methods that provide dimensional shape information that can locate millions of points in x, y, and z. But 3D tools come at the expense of greater component complexity and they often require more time to collect good data, and certainly require more data to analyze.
For many applications, full three-dimensional data is not needed, but something better than a two-dimensional image combined with a grayscale image of the surface could be of great value. Kevin Harding explores lesser-known uses of polarization, structured light, and moire methods that can enhance the information in a 2D image to simplify analysis and make more robust images for a successful machine vision application.
***This presentation premiered during the 2021
Vision Spectra Conference. For more information on Photonics Media conferences, visit
events.photonics.com.
About the presenter:
Kevin Harding has over 40 years of experience in optical instrumentation, machine vision, and optical metrology. At GE Research for almost 19 years, he led the activity in optical metrology, doing work for the many businesses of GE. In 2017, Harding retired from GE as a principal scientist to start the company Optical Metrology Solutions LLC. Before GE, he was director of the Electro-Optics Lab at the Industrial Technology Institute, conducting over 200 projects and spinning off six as commercial products. Harding chaired many technical conferences on machine vision and metrology. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in 3D measurement technology and has been recognized for his work by many organizations, including SME, A3, SPIE, and ESD (Empire State Development).
Harding has published over 150 technical papers, taught over 80 short courses, and received over 85 U.S. patents. He is the primary author and editor of the
Handbook of Optical Dimensional Metrology from CRC Press and author of
Practical Optical Dimensional Metrology from SPIE Press. He has served as an association and conference chair for over 30 years, working with SPIE, LIA (the Laser Institute of America), ESD, SME, and OSA, and he is a fellow and past president of SPIE.