Surface image synthesis of moving spinning cans using a 1,000-fps area scan camera

We demonstrate surface-image synthesis of moving, spinning cylindrical objects using a commercially available high-speed area scan camera. The frame rate used in the demonstration experiment was 1,000 fps, which is sufficient to achieve surface-image synthesis of cylinders spun at up to 36 rps. We successfully demonstrated a technique based on an algorithm similar to image mosaicing at 1,000 fps, for the first time to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we discuss techniques to overcome the potential problems faced when applying surface-image synthesis to cylindrical objects, such as image distortion, quantization errors due to superimposing images, and intensity variations due to the surface curvature. An FPGA-based parallel image processing board, PB-1, that we developed was used to implement these demonstrations. We introduce this application of PB-1 as a potential practical solution to the long-standing problem of industrial visual inspection using real-time high-speed vision.