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Why is lighting important for successfully applying Smart Cameras?

When machine users are polled about what is the most challenging about applying vision systems the overwhelming majority have a single word answer:  “Lighting.”  What makes lighting such a critical component when applying a vision sensor?

The heart of a smart application is light.  Essentially an image processor, the digital imager used in machine vision and consumer digital cameras is a light collector.  Each tiny imager component—each picture element—or pixel is a light measurement sensor.  Every pixel’s light level—in the 300,000 to 5 million pixels typically present in machine vision system---is processed in a machine vision algorithm.   The only other foundational pixel data is its address---or location---on the image processor grid.

Unless light—both applied light and ambient light “noise” are controlled, it is essentially impossible for a vision system to perform reliably.

Check out PPT Vision free ROI workbook for understanding the true costs and benefits of applying machine vision to your process.