Hole sorting system and method
US5318173A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | May 29, 1992 |
| Grant date | Jun 7, 1994 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 29, 2012 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10S209/939
- WIPO fieldChemical engineering
- WIPO sectorChemistry
Abstract
An apparatus and a method sort items, such as pickles, having defective shapes, such as holes. A video camera scans moving items and acquires lines of image data including item-colored data and background-colored data. The lines of image data are sent to an image processor and compiled into a 64 line "frame" of image data that are further processed to identify the coordinates of individual items and to compute the size of each item. Because holes in an item are the same color as the background color, the invention provides a device differentiating holes from the background. A "hole-bounding box" is scaled to fit within the item position coordinates. The number of background-colored pixels inside the hole-bounding box is computed and compared to a user-defined threshold number. An item is classified as defective if the threshold number is exceeded. Whenever the image processor classifies an item as defective, centroid position coordinates of the item are reported to a master processor for subsequent rejection of the item.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.