National Instruments IMAQ Vision for Measurement Studio - Manual (Page 14)

© National Instruments Corporation 2-1 IMAQ Vision for LabWindows/CVI User Manual
2
Getting Measurement-Ready
Images
This chapter describes how to set up your imaging system, acquire and
display an image, analyze the image, and prepare the image for additional
processing.
Set Up Your Imaging System
Before you acquire, analyze, and process images, you must set up your
imaging system. The manner in which you set up your system depends on
your imaging environment and the type of analysis and processing you
need to do. Your imaging system should produce images with high enough
quality so that you can extract the information you need from the images.
Follow the guidelines below to setup your imaging system.
1. Determine the type of equipment you need given your space
constraints and the size of the object you need to inspect. For more
information, see Chapter 3, System Setup and Calibration, of the
IMAQ Vision Concepts Manual.
a. Make sure your camera sensor is large enough to satisfy your
minimum resolution requirement.
b. Make sure your lens has a depth of field high enough to keep all
of your objects in focus regardless of their distance from the lens.
Also, make sure your lens has a focal length that meets your
needs.
c. Make sure your lighting provides enough contrast between the
object under inspection and the background for you to extract the
information you need from the image.
2. Position your camera so that it is parallel to the object under
inspection. If your camera acquires images of the object from an angle,
perspective errors occur. You can compensate for these errors with
software, but using a parallel inspection angle obtains the fastest and
most accurate results.