Upcoming/Recent Presentations

Extending the Limits of Application Thinking for Color-based Recognition in Manufacturing.

Color Machine Vision: Challenging Human Perception

	Many people familiar with machine vision equate color machine vision with location, identification, and/or inspection of objects or scenes with simple color distributions, simple boundaries, and simple backgrounds. Few real applications meet these criteria. The speaker will discuss and demonstrate an unconventional color machine vision and image interpretation system which handles complex color distributions, complex boundaries, and complex backgrounds and has been successfully deployed in a variety of challenging real-world problems.
	IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Central New England Chapter Tuesday, October 12, 2004, Informal Discussion: 6:00 PM. Program: 6:30 PM. Wellesley High School, Wellesley MA . The meeting is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. An optional dinner with the speaker follows the meeting, at a local restaurant.

Color Vision for Assembly Inspection: Fact and Fiction

Facts:
• There are many situations in which, with very little training, humans use subtle and/or complex differences in color distributions, to verify correct assembly.
  
• There are situations in which traditional color machine vision systems using carefully chosen thresholds and/or selected color spaces can verify correct assembly based on simple contrasting color differences.
  
• There are many situations in which, with very little training, color machine vision systems employing a new analysis approach are using subtle and/or complex differences in color distributions to verify correct assembly, much faster, more reliably, and much more cost-effectively than humans.
  

Wednesday, October 3, 2001, 1:00 PM-4:00 PM: Machine Vision for Identification and Orientation
Assembly Tech Expo 2001: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL, October 1-3, 2001.
See also http://www.assemblymag.com.

Color Machine Vision in Assembly Inspection

Color vision can be an important tool in verifying the presence of the correct components in assemblies. Components in these assemblies are more often than not multicolored. Examples range from automotive fuses and interior fabrics to electronic components, food, and pharmaceutical packaging. Complex coloration is easily processed by humans and other living creatures but has presented serious obstacles to traditional machine vision methods. A new approach overcomes these problems and allows true training by example without the necessity of color space transformations, threshold setting, or other operations requiring special technical knowledge or judgement.

Wednesday, April 5, 2000: Session #8: Advances in Color Processing Methods
The Vision Conference East: Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA, April 4-6, 2000

Lessons Learned From Five Years Of Successful Color Machine Vision Inspection Of Automotive Fuse Blocks

Automotive fuse blocks provide a classic model for color-based assembly inspection. Lessons learned from such inspection are readily applicable to other color-based inspection systems. Since most modern automotive fuses are color-coded to facilitate human recognition, color machine vision provides an obvious method to automate verification of correct placement. Unfortunately, the efforts of some very competent machine vision engineers, relying on widely published, apparently rational, approaches to color image interpretation, have resulted in inspection systems which are tedious to train and disappointing in their performance. Results have been the undeserved tarnishing of the reputations of the engineers involved and color machine vision in general. Well-intended design changes by fuse manufacturers, rather than improving the situation, may have exacerbated it. Some of the problems are attributable to poor choice of cameras and lighting. However the major reasons for the difficulties, and the seeds of the solution, were recognized by mathematicians centuries ago. Recent mathematical advances have made it easier to quantify the exact nature of the problem and the surprisingly simple solution. Unfortunately authors of textbooks and machine vision product literature generally appear to be unaware of both the problems and the solutions. A variety of fuse blocks are used to illustrate both the problems and the successful solutions.

Wednesday, October 6, 1999: Session #2: What’s New in Color Vision
The Vision Conference: San Jose, CA, October 4-7, 1999

The Emperor's New Clothes: A Classic Example of Color-Based Assembly Inspection.

We explore some myths, fables, and realities of automated color based recognition as exemplified by a legendary problem in fabric identification. In particular we are concerned with answering the question, "Can traditional color machine vision methods provide more trustworthy results than the emperor's dishonest advisors?". The results may surprise you.

Wednesday, September 22, 1999: Specialty Lighting Session
Applied Machine Vision '99: Hynes Convention Center Boston, MA , September 21-22, 1999
Co-located with Electronic Imaging International, Photonics East, and New England Design and Manfacturing Expo.