Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for inspection of characteristics on non-rigid packages

US5673334A · kind A · utility

52Cited by
8References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateNov 30, 1995
Grant dateSep 30, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 30, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T7/73
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus to search, locate and inspect an object or characteristic of interest on a non-rigid package. First, a model of patterns of interest are stored to train the system with a model of the characteristics of interest. A minimum spanning forest (MSF) is generated defining the characteristics of interest as vertices with each vertex referencing a vertex closest to itself in order to minimize the sum of the distances between vertices in each minimum spanning tree (MST) of the MSF. At run time two coarse alignment features that the system has been trained to identify are located to determine rotation and coarse position of a non-rigid package being inspected. Local alignment then determines the exact position of local alignment points each of which is a starting vertex associated with one or more characteristics of interest as vertices in that starting vertexes MST. When the exact position of each local alignment point is determined the approximate position of associated characteristics is then known. Fine alignment determines the exact position of the characteristics of interest. The fine alignment process uses the minimum spanning forrest ("MSF") to locate each char…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.