<title>Automatic light-source placement for detecting object features</title>

Abstract

The selection and placement of cameras and light sources for a specific task (e.g., locating a part in a tray or inspecting an object) is one of the most important steps in creating a successful vision system, because obtaining high-quality images can greatly simplify the vision algorithms and improve their reliability. We will describe techniques that use a visual task description stated in terms of features to be detected, and derive a range of light-source locations that satisfy the task requirements. In particular, given a task description that specifies particular object edges to be detected with a given edge detector (e.g., a Sobel edge operator), our techniques determine the constraints on light-source location such that the edge is detected.