Part 1: Incident light illumination concept
Light: information carrier for industrial image processing
Targeted and suitable lighting allows good-quality, contrast-rich images and thus results in reliable and precise detection as light is the information carrier for image processing. Without profound knowledge of lighting, the limits of what can be achieved will be quickly reached. This article series gives an overview of the various lighting concepts and their potential applications.
The application determines the lighting concept. This may sound mundane, but it is true. Characters, codes and surface faults cannot be inspected using back lighting and highly reflective components cannot be inspected using incident lighting. The user can generally choose between back light and incident light illumination concepts. Furthermore, there are special configurations such as telecentric lighting and dark field lighting.
This article is concerned with the incident light lighting concept. Here, light travels from the direction of observation onto the surface of the inspected object. This configuration is generally suitable for homogeneous, directed illumination of flat to lightly cambered diffuse reflective objects, i.e. objects with lightly to moderately mirrored surfaces. To this end, Vision & Control has made a wide range of different lighting components available as standard.
