3D sensor for the inspection of shiny surfaces

In many areas, ever-increasing requirements are being placed on the quality and appearance of surfaces. Particularly with shiny and reflecting surfaces, faultless, high quality production is expected. The parts are often subjected to manual inspection, which can lead to defects being missed due to tiredness of the inspectors.

reflectCONTROL is designed specifically to meet the high quality requirements that ensure high quality for shiny surfaces. The system based on deflectometry projects a striped pattern onto the measurement object. Defects on the surface cause deviations from the striped pattern which are recorded by cameras and evaluated by software.

Deflectometry sensor for 3D measurements of shiny surfaces

The reflectCONTROL RC130 is intended for shape measurements of shiny objects. This sensor displays a striped pattern which is mirrored by the surface of the measuring object into the sensor cameras. The sensor provides a 3D image of the surface which allows for the topology of the components (e.g. flatness, deflection, curvature) to be determined. The RCS130 model is specially optimized for measurement and inspection tasks, e.g., in production lines. Moreover, the sensor has a GigE Vision interface that offers GenICam compliant data.

Surface inspection of shiny components

The reflectCONTROL RCS110-245 with integrated controller is designed for stationary measurements or integration into machines. This compact sensor detects anomalies on shiny surfaces which are processed and displayed as reflectivity and curvature image by software. GigE Vision enables the transfer of surface images to a wide range of image processing software packages for further analyzes.

Convenient user interface

The 3D-View software offers a convenient user interface for reflectCONTROL sensors. This user-friendly software enables quick commissioning and evaluation of the sensor. It offers among other things set up and optimization of parameters and ensures the correct positioning of the measuring object and sensor. Creation and management of parameter sets for different measurement tasks are also possible. The software can also be used to start data acquisition. The images obtained are visualized and can be saved for further processing. The 3D-View software is particularly helpful for system integrators as it provides important information:

They can access all GenICam parameters, which considerably simplifies the integration of the software. For inline applications, the display of the measurement duration allows conclusions to be drawn about the cycle time.

Software integration via Micro-Epsilon’s 3D-SDK

reflectCONTROL is equipped with an easy-to-integrate SDK (Software Development Kit). The SDK is based on the GigE Vision and GenICam industry standards including the following function blocks:

•  Network configuration and sensor connection
•  Comprehensive sensor control
•  Control of image transfer
•  Management of user-defined parameter sets
•  C++ example programs and documentation