Image acquisition system
First Claim
1. A system for transmitting an image to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates memory for storage of said image, said system comprising:
- image acquisition means for acquiring at least a portion of said image in response to a trigger signal, memory means for storing data representative of said image, image transfer means for transferring said image from said image acquisition means to said memory means, said image transfer means including buffer memory means for temporarily storing said at least a portion of said image pending allocation of memory space from said memory means by the host processor, wherein said image acquisition means can operate substantially independently of the allocation of memory by the host processor.
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Abstract
An image acquisition system for machine vision systems decouples image acquisition from the transmission of the image to a host processor by using a programmable imager controller to selectively disable and enable the transmission of data to the host and by using a system of buffers to temporarily store image data pending allocation of memory. This enables the image acquisition system to acquire images asynchronously and to change the exposure parameters on a frame-by-frame basis without the latency associated with the allocation of memory for storage of the acquired image. The system architecture of the invention further permits interruption and resumption of image acquisition with minimal likelihood of missing data. Data throughput is further enhanced by transmitting to the host only that data corresponding to the region of interest within the image and discarding the data from outside of the region of interest at the camera stage.
43 Citations
86 Claims
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1. A system for transmitting an image to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates memory for storage of said image, said system comprising:
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image acquisition means for acquiring at least a portion of said image in response to a trigger signal, memory means for storing data representative of said image, image transfer means for transferring said image from said image acquisition means to said memory means, said image transfer means including buffer memory means for temporarily storing said at least a portion of said image pending allocation of memory space from said memory means by the host processor, wherein said image acquisition means can operate substantially independently of the allocation of memory by the host processor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 54, 78)
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27. A machine vision system for acquiring an image, said system comprising:
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image acquisition means for acquiring said image, said image acquisition means including means for altering image acquisition parameters prior to acquisition of said image;
memory means for storing said image;
image transfer means for transferring said image from said programmable image acquisition means to said memory means, said image transfer means including means for interrupting transfer of said image at an interruption point, and means for resuming transfer of said image from said interruption point. whereby resuming said acquisition of said image at said interruption point substantially prevents loss of data corresponding to said image. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58)
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59. A system for transmitting an image to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates memory for storage of said image, said system comprising:
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image acquisition means for acquiring at least a portion of said image in response to a trigger signal;
image transfer means for transferring said image from said image acquisition means to memory allocated by the host processor, said image transfer means including transfer interruption means for interrupting transfer of said image to memory at an interruption point, buffer means coupled to receive data representative of an image from said image acquisition means for storing said data during the operation of said transfer interruption means, and transfer resumption means to resume transfer of said image to memory from said interruption point.
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60. An image acquisition system for connection to a machine vision system for acquiring an image of an object, said system having a host processor and comprising:
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image acquisition means for acquiring said image of the object, said image acquisition means including photo-sensitive means for acquiring said image in response to an acquisition signal containing selected image acquisition parameters, and programmable control means in circuit with said photo-sensitive means for generating said acquisition signal and for programmably altering during acquisition of said image said selected image acquisition parameters, memory means for storing at least a portion of said image, and transfer means for transferring said image from said image acquisition means to said memory means. - View Dependent Claims (61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86)
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Specification