From pixel to digital image: how industrial image processing works

| Insustrial image processing

Pixel for industrial image processing

In the world of computers, many innovative technologies now exist to help us in our everyday lives. One of these innovations is image processing, which enables computers to understand and process images. The enormous potential of this powerful technology is also widely known and increasingly used in industrial manufacturing.

The process of image-to-computing power conversion is a fundamental prerequisite for industrial image processing. It enables visual information to be converted into a form that can be analyzed and interpreted by computers. Through this process, machine vision systems can be used in industrial manufacturing to support tasks such as inspection, quality assurance, identification and measurement.

Images: A collection of pixels

Everything starts with a picture. When we look at an image, we see a collection of dots that come together to represent a scene or object. These dots are called pixels. A computer can't see an image the same way we humans can. Instead, it converts the image into a digital form by dividing it into a raster shape, where each pixel has a specific position and brightness.

Colors and their coding

In an image, there are a variety of colors that together create the overall image. To store and process these colors in digital format, special color spaces are used, such as RGB.

The RGB color space is one of the most commonly used color spaces. It assigns three values to each pixel in the image, representing the intensity of the colors red, green, and blue. Each value is between 0 and 255 and indicates how strongly the respective color is represented in this pixel. The combination of color values makes it possible to display a wide range of colors (about 24 million) and shades in an image. By precisely controlling the color values, images can be realistically created with all its colors and shades with high precision.

Example:

Let's imagine we have a red square on a screen. Each pixel of the square is represented in the RGB color space by the values (255, 0, 0). This means that the red color is present with maximum intensity, while green and blue are not. Now, if we have other colors in the image, such as a green triangle, the color values of the corresponding pixels will be different to represent the desired color.

Image analysis using algorithms

Once an image is stored in digital form, it can be analyzed and processed by industrial image processing software. Here, special algorithms are used that are trained to recognize various features in the image, such as shapes, texts, colors, textures and patterns, and to compare them with reference images.

The processed information is then used to make decisions or perform specific actions. For example, the algorithms may be set to look for defects in a product. They can also be used to identify specific objects or take precise measurements.

Image processing and computing power

The processing power required to process an image depends on the frame rate and the image size. The size of the image plays a role, as larger images require more computing power. The complexity of the algorithms applied also affects the resource requirements. The more complex the task is and the more details are to be detected in the image, the more computing power is required.

Modern computers and powerful processors allow these image processing algorithms to be executed efficiently and quickly. Continuous advances in computing power have contributed to the ability of machine vision to handle complex tasks in real time and improve efficiency and accuracy in production.

Conclusion

By converting images into digital forms, encoding colors and applying image processing algorithms, a computer can extract valuable information from images.

Especially in the manual manufacturing industry, image processing with its powerful algorithms is contributing to a lasting change in the production landscape - from the conversion of pixels into digital images to the precise analysis of visual information.

Machine vision software technology enables companies to maintain quality standards, minimize defects and optimize production processes. With ever-evolving computing power and artificial intelligence, the future holds even more unimagined possibilities for machine vision.

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