The world's fastest camera for 3D contour measurement

Citation

(2008), "The world's fastest camera for 3D contour measurement", Sensor Review, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2008.08728aad.006

The world's fastest camera for 3D contour measurement

The world's fastest camera for 3D contour measurement

Offering 35,000 contour profiles per second and more than 1,500 pieces of 3D contour data per profile – the Ranger E camera system from SICK (UK) Ltd sets the standard in 3D contour measurement for industrial applications (Figure 4).

This astonishing image-capture capability allows high-quality images to be captured much faster, increasing the user's inspection rate. Capturing a high-quality image can often be achieved with similar products, but normally at the expense of speed, slowing down the application developed by the user. With the Ranger E, this trade off is no longer an issue, as high-resolution images can be captured at high speed-increasing the effectiveness of the customer's final solution.

Figure 4 The Ranger E camera system from SICK (UK) Ltd

Offering the world's fastest measurements for high-speed applications, the Ranger E is capable of extremely high accuracy for detecting the finest of details. Indeed, with its integrated 3D data evaluation capability and a Gigabit Ethernet interface for rapid data transfer it is unsurpassed in the market for 3D imaging technology. The use of Gigabit Ethernet allows the camera to “talk” to PC memory directly without the use of a frame grabber – not only does this save time it also saves costs as no frame grabber is required.

The Ranger E's flexibility means it can be adapted to a huge variety of tasks irrespective of the layout of the inspection cell or station. Both the optics and the laser can be changed to produce an optimum solution for your application. Designed to help users measure, locate, inspect and identify, the Ranger E 3D measurement system is designed for integration into a multitude of different analysis and inspection environments as the central component of an image processing system. Two types of cameras are available, a high-resolution 3D version and a multi-scan version, which allows several different object features, such as grey scale value, 3D and laser scatter, to be measured and evaluated simultaneously. A variety of lenses can also be used, allowing the user to modify the camera to scan smaller areas in more detail.

An RS422 interface allows connection of an encoder for the precise detection of an object's speed when used in conjunction with a conveyor, while the Gigabit Ethernet interface allows the 3D co-ordinates calculated by the camera, to be transferred to a PC for real-time data evaluation.

The Ranger E can be used in a variety of demanding applications, including, in the electronic industry, component checking in pick and place processes and soldering paste inspection and circuit boards inspection. For logistical operations it can be used for robot guidance, palletising and de-palletising. And the food industry will see uses for portioning meat, fish or vegetables and assuring the quality of fruit or baked goods.

For further information, please visit the web site: www.sick.co.uk