NEWS
Industrial Vision Systems
FALL 2000
Contents
New Partners in North America........ 1
NeuroCheck® in Japan: Schott
Advanced Processing....................... 2
Bundles .......................................... 3
PC Cameras................................... 3
Vision 2000.................................... 3
NeuroCheck® Cube ........................ 4
Frame Grabbers ............................. 4
DS Datenverarbeitung und Sensortechnik GmbH
NeuroCheck® builds up strength in international markets
New Partner in North America
As the world’s strongest economy, the
U.S.A. are of course one of the most
important markets for NeuroCheck. The
diversity and sheer geographical size of
this industrial area requires an extensive
and experienced distribution and service
organisation. The increasing use of
NeuroCheck-based vision systems in
installations of our large German customers makes a dense support network
even more important to provide maintenance for these systems at the highest
technical level possible.
Our new partner in North America,
Fork Standards Inc. (FSI), not only has the
necessary technological experience but
also a highly qualified distribution network covering the entire U.S.A. as well as
Canada with more than 600 representatives and a number of certified solution
providers. As of September 1, 2000,
NeuroCheck is sold and supported in the
U.S.A. and Canada exclusively through
FSI. With their headquarters in Lombard,
Illinois, approx. 60km west of Chicago,
they are ideally placed for close contact to
the American automotive industry as well
as for excellent connections throughout
the entire continent.
Our former U.S. distributor, RDP Corp.,
Ohio, will continue their successful work
for NeuroCheck as a local distributor
within FSI’s network of
solution providers. Timken, TRW, and Delphi are
but a few of RDP’s
NeuroCheck customers.
Fork Standards Inc.
was founded in 1959.
Originally, the company
manufactured mainly
oscillators and time standards for military purposes. Approximately 20
years ago the company
completed its evolution
into products supplied
primarily to industrial
markets. In addition to
Presidents W. Scott Tobey (FSI) and Christian Demant (DS) with
rotary incremental enco- the new version of NeuroCheck® Compact
ders, counter based
components and photoelectric sensors
powerful engine for a broad range of
manufactured for many familiar brand
machine vision products is just what end
labels, the company provides a full range
users and OEM's are looking for, along
of machine vision products, from comwith bulletproof reliability and true induponents to integration services for turnstrial packaging. When FSI evaluated
key vision systems. FSI features full inNeuroCheck technically, and noted it's
house vision lab capabilities, including
position as world standard in industrialiconveyor systems for production line
zed countries elsewhere, we realized that
simulation.
this would represent an excellent opportuAn ideal combination has come about
nity for the U.S. marketplace."
with this new partnership. In the words of
Experience and organization, namely
Fred Turek, Vice President, Sales & Markepractical vision system engineering experiting, "FSI has felt that having a common,
ence and the distribution network, were
NEWS
the main factors in DS’ decision to select
FSI as the new North American headquarters for NeuroCheck. The number of FSI’s
representatives – more than 600 in the
U.S.A. and Canada – guarantees a close
personal contact to customers in all areas
of the continent. This is especially
important for high-tech products like
vision systems where a fast reaction to
customers’ needs is critical. This network
of representatives is further enhanced by
the ”Solution Providers“, which have been
specially selected, trained and certified for
the machine vision market by FSI. With
their many years of experience, they can
provide comprehensive services and assistance with industrial image processing
applications, including full integration of
turn-key vision systems.
Another strong point is FSI’s in-house programming department. This allows FSI to
use the new programming interfaces of
NeuroCheck 5.0 for customer-specific
enhancements. We are convinced that the
combination of an integrated system and
FALL 2000
open interfaces
offered by version 5.0 will be
of increasing
importance for
the application
of NeuroCheck
in the future.
This conviction
has been
strengthened
further by the
tremendously
positive reaction of the German market to
the presentaFSI’s headquarters in Lombard, Illinois, 60 km West of Chicago, and
tion of these
new interfaces. their distribution network
NeuroCheck’s
excellent reputation in the U.S.A. –
ched by a partner with an expertise and a
demonstrated for example by the includistribution structure living up to the techsion of DS president C. Demant in the
nological capabilities of the system.
Editorial Advisory Board of the Vision
Systems Design magazine – is now mat-
NeuroCheck® in Japan: Schott Advanced Processing
The Advanced Processing group of Schott
Spezialglas GmbH, Mainz, Germany,
already installed several NeuroCheck
vision systems in-house. Now they have
delivered the first of a new series of Display Laser Cutters to Japan. Two further
machines destined for the U.S.A. are
already being built and will be delivered
before the end of the year. Their patented
laser cutting technology for glass separation leads to a significant reduction of
processing steps. It can be used, for
example, in the production of displays,
carrier substrates and other flat glass products.
Highest precision of the cutting process is
of prime importance for the application of this technology. As an
integral component of the
machine, NeuroCheck, together
with the digital SINUMERIK control system, is responsible for
maintaining the required cutting
precision. The coated glass panes
are aligned first, then measured in
x- and y- direction using fiducial
marks. The position and angle
deviations computed by
NeuroCheck are transmitted to the
control system. The control system
then determines an origin shift and
corrects the deviations through the
high-precision linear motors of the
specially designed mechanical
setup.
Although the machine was the last
to arrive in the new plant – as the
only non-Japanese machine it had
to make the longest journey of
them all – it was the first to be
The new DLC-600 display laser cutter by Schott Spe- cleared for production use. This
zialglas GmbH
was not least due to the integrated
NeuroCheck environment which enabled
the technicians to react very quickly to the
conditions on-site while putting the
machine into operation. For example, it is
very easy, using the flexible gauging
functions, to reconfigure the position computation to any type of fiducial marks
used in the production process.
Masthead
NeuroCheck User Magazine
Circulation: 3000
Editor/Copyright
DS GmbH, Neckarstr. 76-1
D-71686 Remseck, Germany
Member of VDMA and AIA
Responsible for the contents
Dr.-Ing. Peter Waszkewitz
Contact
[email protected]
+49 (0) 7146-8956-0
NEWS
PC Cameras
One of the most important new products
on the Vision 2000 was the new version of
NeuroCheck Compact. Beneath an almost
identical exterior, the inner values clearly
deliver the message that this is an integrated vision system to be reckoned with.
The combination of revised hardware and
NeuroCheck 5.0 results in a flexibility,
ease-of-use and performance unmatched in systems of this size. NeuroCheck
users will feel immediately at home since
the software of NeuroCheck Compact is
identical to a NeuroCheck 5.0 Professional Edition. This means, of course, that
check routines are fully compatible, maintaining complete scalability of
NeuroCheck-based inspection systems.
With its many interfaces, NeuroCheckCompact integrates seamlessly into the
Bundles
world of modern data communication.
Besides standard PC interfaces (serial,
parallel, USB), it features a built-in Ethernet connector, enabling integration into
company networks as well as remotemaintenance through the Internet. Standard PC monitors and keyboards can be
connected for configuring and display
purposes.
The digital camera unit is available with
resolutions from 640 * 480 up to 1280 *
1080 pixels in gray scale or color. With
266 MHz processors (and higher) and up
to 256 MByte SDRAM, the Compact provides
sufficient resources for powerful visual
inspection systems. The standard hardware configuration includes 2.5“ harddisks, allowing for complete installation of
all modern 32 bit operating systems including Windows 2000, the up-and-coming
enterprise computing platform. The
Compact is also available with Flashdisks –
of higher capacity than the previous version – for environments where a system
without moving parts is required.
In contrast to insular solutions based on
special hardware, the PC technology of
NeuroCheck Compact provides integration
from the field level up to the management
level with easy data exchange through
standard office formats.
Vision 2000
The Vision show in Stuttgart
has evolved into the most
important event for the image
processing industry in Europe and can
easily compete with events in the U.S.A. –
if not surpass them in terms of size and
quality of exhibits. Not surprising that it
was quite an international audience
making use of the occasion to get the
latest news from the image processing
market during the three days from October 18 to 20 in Stuttgart.
At our traditional location in hall 7, visitors
had the opportunity to
meet the management
of DS in person and to
have a look at the
many news in and
around NeuroCheck,
presented by an an
Mr. Earl Yardley alternating team from
of IVS Ltd.
sales and application
departments.
We were also very happy to welcome
Vision Specialist Earl Yardley from our
FALL 2000
sister company IVS in Wantage, England.
He was present on October 19 and 20 for
in-depth consultations with customers
from outside Germany and foreign partners of our German customers.
Another highlight was the very well-attended talk held by Dr.-Ing. Peter Waszkewitz,
director of the NeuroCheck support team
during the Industrial Vision Days. Under
the headline “Integrated Image Processing Software in
the Age of
ComponentBased Development“ he gave
an introduction
to the underlying ideas and
the philosophy
of the program
architecture and
the user-interface of
NeuroCheck.
From the start, DS has defined its mission
to provide solutions instead of isolated
tools, functions or components.
NeuroCheck’s architecture and user interface are the most obvious results of this
philosophy.
The NeuroCheck bundles apply the same
philosophy to the area of image processing components. Each bundle has been
compiled from carefully selected components, based on the many years of experience of our application department. We
have stayed true to the principle to offer
only components we ourselves use in
industrial vision systems. Experience
shows that only production use will reveal
the actual capabilities – and limits – of a
system component.
On the Vision 2000, we introduced the
first of a number of solution bundles. Each
bundle has been tailored to specific types
of visual inspection tasks, e.g.:
The Standard bundle is an economically priced selection of components for a
broad range of basic inspection tasks, like
presence verification or bar code reading.
The Line-Scan bundle has been designed for tasks which require scanning a
work piece, like surface inspection of
cylindrical parts. This bundle is available
for internally or externally controlled line
acquisition with image widths from 1024
to 4096 pixels.
The Color bundle enables you to solve
inspection problems where components
have to be distinguished by color. Depending on the required color
sensitivity, the bundle is
available with PAL, 1-chip
or 3-chip RGB cameras.
The Asynchronous
bundle contains an asynchronous reset-camera
which can be triggered to
acquire images from parts
which have to be inspected
in motion, e.g. when
checking bottle labels.
It doesn’t end there, of
course. Prepare to be surprised.
NEWS
FALL 2000
NeuroCheck® Multimedia
Most readers of this
newsletter have probably been introduced
to NeuroCheck
through a demo version. The NeuroCheck demo is a fully
functional image processing program.
Restrictions apply only to functionality
required for building automated visual
inspection systems. This demo version of
the commercial NeuroCheck Professional
Edition will remain available to allow
application engineers to perform an indepth evaluation of the software for their
specific application.
On the other hand, there is some effort
involved to master the functionality provided by this kind of demo version. It is not
the quick overview of the system required,
for example, for decisions at a higher
managerial level.
Then again, it is difficult to give a true
impression of the highly dynamical
nature of such a software system using
traditional printed material. In particular, it is hard to get a feel of how to
work with the system and what possibilities it offers through its user interface.
Therefore, a multimedia presentation
has been designed in cooperation with
our English sister company, Industrial
Vision Systems, Ltd., to provide just
that: a comprehensive overview of the
capabilities and the operation of
NeuroCheck.
The presentation is composed of three
sections. A general overview shows the
basic characteristics of the system, its
main application areas and the branches
of industry where it is typically used. Infor-
mation on extending the system, training,
support and hardware components
rounds off this overview.
Another section answers typical questions
about industrial image processing tasks in
general and NeuroCheck solutions to
these tasks in particular.
The largest section is dedicated to the
main types of applications targeted by
NeuroCheck. The NeuroCheck cube
leads you step by step through the configuration of check routines for the main
application areas of industrial image processing. Each step is accompanied by
screen shots and textual explanations,
conveying a realistic impression of the
process of designing a real-world industrial vision system, from acquisition of the
first image to configuration of process
integration and automatic operation. Running a demo version of NeuroCheck in
parallel to the presentation, you can
immediately carry out the configuration
steps yourself and use the presentation as
an interactive tutorial.
Of course you can request your free copy
of the presentation CD anytime. All you
have to do is send an email to:
[email protected].
Frame Grabbers
There are two things we consider very
important when developing drivers for
NeuroCheck:
• to use the capabilities of the hardware
to their full extent
• to make no restrictions concerning
simultaneous use of different boards.
The decision to include support for a particular frame grabber in NeuroCheck is therefore made with great care and requires
the new hardware to be a technically or
economically interesting alternative for our
customers. The frame grabbers added
with version 5.0 round off the NeuroCheck
hardware palette at both ends.
At the high-end of image processing, the
boards for digital line-scan and area-scan
cameras are supplemented by frame
grabbers for 3-chip RGB cameras, providing a new edge to the versatility and
power of NeuroCheck’s intelligent color
identification algorithm.
At the other end, the outstanding price/
performance ratio of a newly supported
family of monochrome and color frame
grabbers allows users to build extremely
cost-effective vision solutions for standard
tasks.
With these new frame grabbers, we have
again come closer to our goal of establi-
shing image processing as an economical
inspection technology in companies of all
kinds – regardless of size or product spectrum.