Abstract
A flexible and highly configurable 3D vision system targeted for in-line product inspection is presented. The system includes a low cost 3D camera based on structured light and a set of flexible software tools that automate the measurement process. The specification of the measurement tasks is done in a first manual step. The user selects regions of the point cloud to analyze and specifies primitives to be characterized within these regions. After all measurement tasks have been specified, measurements can be carried out on successive parts automatically and without supervision. As a test case, a measurement cell for inspection of a V-shaped car component has been developed. The car component consists of two steel tubes attached to a central hub. Each of the tubes has an additional bushing clamped to its end. A measurement is performed in a few seconds and results in an ordered point cloud with 1.2 million points. The software is configured to fit cylinders to each of the steel tubes as well as to the inside of the bushings of the car part. The size, position and orientation of the fitted cylinders allow us to measure and verify a series of dimensions specified on the CAD drawing of the component with sub-millimetre accuracy.