3D object size estimation system for object wrapping and method thereof

• US 20150276379A1
• Filed: 08/21/2014
• Published: 10/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gorilla Technology UK Limited
• Original Assignee: Gorilla Technology, Inc. (Gorilla Science & Technology, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ni, Sze-Yao, Lin, Wen-Hsiung, Lin, Tom C.-I.
• Granted Patent: US 10,247,541 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/022 by means of tv-camera scanning
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/564 from contours
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/62 of area, perimeter, diameter or volume
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/74 involving reference images or patches

Abstract

The invention discloses a system and method for estimating a three-dimensional (3D) packaging size of an object. The method has a self calibration function to correct the scale in the measurement environment so as to reduce errors caused by human operations. The system comprises an image capture unit for capturing images of the measurement environment and objects; a scale correction unit for performing the calibration using a reference object of a known size; and an object size estimation unit for detecting the position of an object to be estimated in the image data received from the image capture unit and estimating the 3D size of the object according to the calibrated scale.

Claims

1. A system of estimating the three-dimensional size of an object for object wrapping, the system comprising:

an image capturing unit, for capturing image data of a measurement environment and objects in the measurement environment;

a scale correction unit, operative to utilize image data of a reference object with a known length, a known width and a known height in the measurement environment to obtain spatial scale information for correcting a scale; and

an object size estimation unit, operative to receive image data of an object to be estimated from the image capturing unit for detecting in the received image data a position of the object to be estimated in the measurement environment and to use a predetermined shape having a spatial size being measurable by the corrected scale to enclose the object to be estimated so as to estimate the three-dimensional size of the object to be estimated according to the spatial size of the predetermined shape.

2. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a user interface to guide a user to operate the system, configure related data for the measurement environment and integrate related electronic information;

and an output interface for outputting data, wherein the output interface comprises at least one of a RS232 port, a wireless channel and an Ethernet port for connecting to Internet.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the reference object has a rigid body with a shape of a cuboid or cubic.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the image capturing unit comprises one or more cameras to capture an image sequence of the object and the measurement environment, wherein the image sequence is transmitted to the scale correction unit or the object size estimation unit, depending on whether the object is the reference object or the object to be estimated.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the scale correction unit comprises:

an image analysis unit, for analyzing the image data provided by the image capturing unit to extract an image of the reference object from the image data; and

an environment model construction unit, operative to find a correspondence between the image of the reference object with a known length, known width and known height and the measurement environment to construct a back-projection model between the measurement environment and object images.

6. The system according to claim 2, wherein the user interface comprises a character description representation, an image data representation, a number sequence representation, or a combination of the characters description, the image data and the number sequence.

7. The system according to claim 1, further being applied to detect a volume of a cuboid object.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined shape is a hexagon.

9. The system according to claim 5, wherein the object size estimation unit utilizes the back-projection model to construct a virtual space frame for each of the images provided by the image analysis unit and modifies the size and angle of the virtual space frame to completely cover the object image by a minimal area, so as to obtain the spatial size of the object to be estimated.

10. The system according to claim 1, further being integrated with at least one of a barcode scanning device, an electronic scale and a character recognition system, to obtain information of an object.

11. The system according to claim 1, further being applied to a logistic process to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

12. The system according to claim 1, further being applied to a receiving process in postal delivery of goods to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

13. The system according to claim 1, further being applied to a receiving process in aviation transport of goods to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

14. The system according to claim 1, the system being in a computer or a portable electronic device.

15. A method of estimating the three-dimensional size of an object for object wrapping, the method comprising:

obtaining image data of a measurement environment and a reference object in the measurement environment;

correcting a scale according to the image data of a reference object with a known length, a known width and a known height in the measurement environment; and

obtaining image data of the measurement environment and an object to be estimated in the measurement environment; and

detecting a position of the object to be estimated in the measurement environment in said image data; and

using a predetermined shape having a spatial size being measurable by the corrected scale to enclose the object to be estimated so as to estimate the three-dimensional size of the object to be estimated according to the spatial size of the predetermined shape.

16. The method according to claim 15, further comprising configuring related data for the measurement environment data and integrating related electronic information through a user interface.

17. The method according to claim 15, wherein the reference object has a rigid body with a shape of a cuboid or cubic.

18. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

analyzing the image data of the measurement environment to extract an image of the object to be estimated; and

finding a correspondence between the image of the reference object with a known length, known width and known height and the measurement environment to construct a back-projection model between the measurement environment and object images.

19. The method according to claim 16, wherein the user interface comprising a character description representation, an image data representation, a number sequence representation, or a combination of the character description, the image data and the number sequence, further comprising outputting data through an output interface, wherein the output interface comprises at least one of a RS232 port, a wireless channel and an Ethernet port for connecting to Internet.

20. The method according to claim 15, further being applied to detect a volume of a cuboid object.

21. The system according to claim 15, wherein the predetermined shape is a hexagon.

22. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

utilizing the back-projection model of the measurement environment to construct a virtual space frame for each of images provided by the image analysis unit and to modify the size and angle of the virtual space frame to completely cover the object image by a minimum area, so as to obtain the spatial size of the object to be estimated.

23. The method according to claim 15, further comprising using at least one of a barcode scanning device, an electronic scale and a character recognition system, to obtain information of an object.

24. The method according to claim 15, further being applied to a logistic process to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

25. The method according to claim 15, further being applied to a receiving process in postal delivery of goods to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

26. The method according to claim 15, further being applied to a receiving process in aviation transport of goods to estimate a space taken by each good to valuate and estimate delivering costs.

27. A system of estimating the three-dimensional size of an object based on a cloud computing service infrastructure, the system comprising:

an image capturing unit, disposed in a client of the cloud computing service infrastructure, for capturing image data of a measurement environment and objects in the measurement environment;

a scale correction unit, disposed in a server of the cloud computing service infrastructure, operative to utilize image data of a reference object with a known length, a known width and a known height in the measurement environment to obtain spatial scale information for correcting a scale; and

an object size estimation unit, operative to receive image data of an object to be estimated from the image capturing unit for detecting in the received image data a position of the object to be estimated in the measurement environment and to use a predetermined shape having a spatial size being measurable by the corrected scale to enclose the object to be estimated so as to estimate the three-dimensional size of the object to be estimated according to the spatial size of the predetermined shape.