IDENTIFICATION METHOD, IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM, MATCHING DEVICE, AND PROGRAM

• US 20160048730A1
• Filed: 03/28/2014
• Published: 02/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: ISHIYAMA, RUI
• Granted Patent: US 9,760,771 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/1447 extracting optical codes from image or text carrying said optical code
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/22 by selection of a specific region containing or referencing a pattern; Locating or processing of specific regions to guide the detection or recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/80 Recognising image objects characterised by unique random patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/07 Target detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/09 Recognition of logos

Abstract

The present invention addresses the problem of acquiring information regarding a component or product and identifying said component or product easily and inexpensively. The present invention has an image-feature storage, an extracting means, an acquiring means, and an identifying means. The image-feature storage stores image features of texture patterns formed on components or products. The extracting means extracts an n-dimensional-symbol image and a texture-pattern image from a taken image containing at least the following: an n-dimensional symbol (n being a natural number) that represents information regarding a component, a product, or a product comprising said component; and a texture pattern formed on said component or product. The acquiring means acquires, from the extracted n-dimensional-symbol image, the aforementioned information regarding the component or product. The identifying means identifies the component, product, or component-comprising product by matching image features of the extracted texture-pattern image against the image features stored by the image-feature storage.

Claims

1. An information acquisition and identification system comprising:

image characteristics storage storing image characteristics of textured patterns formed on component or products;

extracting unit extracting an image of an n-dimensional (n;

natural number) symbol and an image of a textured pattern from an image including at least the n-dimensional symbol for displaying information on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component and a textured pattern formed on the part or the products;

acquiring unit acquiring information on the part or the products from the extracted image of the n-dimensional symbol; and

identifying unit identifying the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component by matching image characteristics of the extracted image of the textured pattern with image characteristics stored in the image characteristics storage means.

2. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the textured pattern is formed in order to identify the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component.

3. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the textured pattern is formed on a portion at a position determined by the n-dimensional symbol.

4. An information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein granularity of the textured pattern is smaller than a short side of a cell of the n-dimensional symbol.

5. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the textured pattern is formed on an area other than the n-dimensional symbol.

6. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 5,

wherein the textured pattern is provided on each die with predetermined granularity in order to identify a die used in manufacturing;

and

wherein each individual is processed, in order to identify the each individual manufactured by the same die, with granularity smaller than the granularity at the time of processing the each die.

7. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1:

forming unit forming the textured pattern in order to identify the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component; and

image capturing unit capturing an image of the formed portion.

8. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the extracting unit extracts the image of the textured pattern by removing a high frequency component corresponding to granularity of a satin finished surface from the captured image and taking a difference between the captured image and an image captured after the high frequency component is removed.

9. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the captured image and images of image characteristics stored in the image characteristics storage means are to be captured under the same lighting conditions.

10. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 9,

wherein an image is captured under the lighting conditions that a portion of a surface in a covering portion is blacken, the portion of the surface being corresponding to a range within a prescribed angular range from a normal direction and facing to a forming surface of the textured pattern, the covering portion being formed so as to cover the forming surface of the textured pattern, and that surfaces corresponding to a range within another angular ranges are set to light source area-including surfaces for dispersing and emitting light received from a light source.

11. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the extracting unit normalizes the captured image by using the n-dimensional symbol.

12. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the n-dimensional symbol indicates identification information for identifying an origin or each individual of the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component;

wherein the image characteristics storage stores the identification information and image characteristics of the textured pattern formed on the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component after they are associated with each other; and

wherein the identifying unit identifies the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component of a captured image by matching the image characteristics of the textured pattern corresponding to the identification information of the n-dimensional symbol acquired from the captured image with the image characteristics of the textured pattern extracted from the captured image.

13. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the image characteristics storage and the identifying unit are provided in an identification server;

wherein the n-dimensional symbol indicates a URL of the identification server;

wherein the acquiring unit acquires the URL of the identification server from the extracted image of the n-dimensional symbol and transmits the captured image or the extracted image of the textured pattern to the identification server; and

wherein the identification server identifies the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component by using the captured image or the extracted image of the textured pattern.

14. The information acquisition and identification system according to claim 1,

wherein the n-dimensional symbol indicates at least one of a serial number, a name of manufacturer, a name of producer, a brand name, a product name, a product number, a rod number, and a URL.

15. A processing system comprising:

textured pattern forming unit forming a textured pattern for identifying a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component to which an n-dimensional symbol displaying information on the part or the products is attached.

16. The processing system according to claim 15,

wherein the textured pattern forming unit forms a textured pattern having granularity smaller than a short side of a cell of the n-dimensional symbol on the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component to which the n-dimensional symbol which indicates information on the part or the products is attached.

17. The processing system according to claim 15,

wherein the textured pattern forming unit forms the textured pattern on a portion at a position determined by the n-dimensional symbol.

18. The processing system according to claim 17,

wherein the textured pattern forming unit forms the textured pattern in a manner that granularity of the textured pattern is smaller than a short side of a cell of the n-dimensional symbol.

19. The processing system according to claim 16,

wherein the textured pattern forming unit forms the textured pattern on an area other than the n-dimensional symbol.

20. The processing system according to claim 19,

wherein the textured pattern forming unit provides the textured pattern on each die with predetermined granularity in order to identify a die used in manufacturing;

and

wherein each individual is processed, in order to identify the each individual manufactured by the same die, with granularity smaller than the granularity at the time of processing the each die.

21. A registration system comprising:

image capturing unit capturing an image including at least an n-dimensional symbol which indicates information on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component and a textured pattern having granularity smaller than a short side of a cell of the n-dimensional symbol, the textured pattern being formed on the part or the products to which the n-dimensional symbol is attached, under specific image capturing conditions;

extracting unit extracting an image of the textured pattern from the captured image; and

registering unit registering in storing means identification information for identifying the part or the products and image characteristics of the extracted image of the textured pattern after they are associated with each other.

22. A registration system according to claim 21,

wherein the textured pattern is provided on each die with predetermined granularity in order to identify a die used in manufacturing, and

wherein each individual is processed, in order to identify the each individual manufactured by the same die, with granularity smaller than the granularity at the time of processing the each die.

23. The registration system according to claim 21,

wherein the textured pattern is formed in order to identify the part, the product, or the product including the part as its component.

24. The registration system according to claim 21,

wherein the textured pattern is formed on an area at a position determined by the n-dimensional symbol.

25. A matching device comprising:

extracting unit extracting an image of an n-dimensional symbol and an image of a textured pattern from an image including at least the n-dimensional symbol for displaying information on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component and the textured pattern formed on the part or the products;

acquiring unit acquiring information on the part or the products from the extracted image of the n-dimensional symbol; and

acquiring and outputting unit acquiring and outputting a check result obtained by checking the extracted image of the textured pattern against a database which stores image characteristics of textured patterns formed on component or products.

26. An information acquisition and identification method comprising:

extracting an image of an n-dimensional symbol and an image of a textured pattern from an image including at least the n-dimensional symbol for displaying information on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component and the textured pattern formed on the part or the products;

acquiring information on the part or the products from the extracted image of the n-dimensional symbol; and

identifying the part or a product including the product as its component by using image characteristics of the extracted image of the textured pattern.

27. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing program for causing a computer to execute

extraction processing extracting an image of an n-dimensional symbol and an image of a textured pattern from an image including at least the n-dimensional symbol for displaying information on a part, a product, or a product including the part as its component and the textured pattern formed on the part or the products;

acquisition processing acquiring information on the part or the products from the extracted image of the n-dimensional symbol; and

acquisition and output processing acquiring and outputting a check result obtained by checking the extracted image of the textured pattern against a database which stores image characteristics of the formed textured pattern.