Understanding and Applying Machine Vision

Citation

Zuech, N. (2001), "Understanding and Applying Machine Vision", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 266-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.28.3.266.2

Understanding and Applying Machine Vision aims to inform end users of the possible applications of machine vision technology in the automotive, container, electronic, food, pharmaceutical, printing, semiconductor and wood industries. It provides a basis for informed decision making about such systems and is therefore not a designers guide to creating new machine vision systems.

Chapter 1 emphasises that machine vision is a data acquisition system and should only be considered as such. This is followed in chapter 2 with the historical development of machine vision, and a description of the machine vision industry in chapter 3.

Chapter 4 presents the “what and why” of machine vision, while the introductory concepts are discussed in chapter 5. Chapter 6 and 7 address image acquisition and image conversion techniques, respectively. Image processing and decision making is discussed in chapter 8 and is followed by an analysis of three dimensional machine vision techniques.

Chapter 10 presents “Applications of machine vision in leading user industries”. “Common generic applications found in manufacturing” are discussed in chapter 11, and chapter 12 covers methods for evaluating machine vision applications. The final two chapters of the book discuss application analysis and implementation, and alternatives to machine vision. A glossary and machine vision application checklist are also included.

Overall, this book is a useful guide for successfully creating machine vision systems from commercially available components. As a revised and expanded second edition it is fairly uninspiring and a bit of a disappointment.