Image acquisition system
First Claim
1. A system for acquiring and transmitting images to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates memory space for storage of said images acquired by said system, said system comprising:
- image acquisition means responsive to one or more trigger signals to begin acquiring at least a portion of two or more of said images,memory means holding said memory space for storing at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means, andimage transfer means for controlling transfer of said at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means from said image acquisition means to said memory means, said image transfer means having buffer memory means for receiving and storing at least a portion of said images pending at least an allocation of said memory space in said memory means by the host processor for said images,wherein said image acquisition means can operate substantially independently of the allocation of memory by the host processor to acquire the images at any time relative to the allocation of the memory space in said memory means by the host processor, andwherein the transfer of said at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means occurs in response to a release signal or a hold signal generated in response to two or more signals asserted by one or more components forming a portion of a data path for transmission of image data from the image acquisition means to the memory means.
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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.
16 Citations
55 Claims
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1. A system for acquiring and transmitting images to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates memory space for storage of said images acquired by said system, said system comprising:
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image acquisition means responsive to one or more trigger signals to begin acquiring at least a portion of two or more of said images, memory means holding said memory space for storing at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means, and image transfer means for controlling transfer of said at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means from said image acquisition means to said memory means, said image transfer means having buffer memory means for receiving and storing at least a portion of said images pending at least an allocation of said memory space in said memory means by the host processor for said images, wherein said image acquisition means can operate substantially independently of the allocation of memory by the host processor to acquire the images at any time relative to the allocation of the memory space in said memory means by the host processor, and wherein the transfer of said at least a portion of data representative of the at least a portion of the two or more of said images acquired by the image acquisition means occurs in response to a release signal or a hold signal generated in response to two or more signals asserted by one or more components forming a portion of a data path for transmission of image data from the image acquisition means to the memory means. - 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, 27)
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28. A system for transmitting an image to a machine vision system having a host processor that allocates host memory locations for storage of an image acquired by said system, 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 from said machine vision system, said trigger signal providing said image acquisition means with a selected image parameter for said image; and image transfer means for transferring said image from said image acquisition means to temporary memory, prior to transfer of said image to memory locations allocated by the host processor, said image transfer means including transfer interruption means for interrupting transfer of said image to the temporary memory at an interruption point, and transfer resumption means to resume transfer of said image to the temporary memory from said interruption point, wherein said image acquisition means, in response to a transfer interruption by said transfer interruption means, holds portions of the image not yet received correctly by said temporary memory until instructed to restart transfer of said portions of said image to said temporary memory or said host memory locations.
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29. 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 a host memory manager 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, programmable control means in circuit with said photo-sensitive means for receiving a loading signal and for programmatically altering prior to or during acquisition of said image said selected image acquisition parameters, vertical memory means for storing at least a portion of said image, and transfer means for transferring said image from said vertical memory means of said image acquisition means to a memory means in response to one or more release signals asserted by one or more components forming a portion of a data transmission path from the image acquisition means to the memory means. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55)
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Specification