DISPLAY EXPERTISE

CAPSTONE can develop or assist in creation of display products and associated processing capabilities for your product.

Capabilities:

• Display Components
  • Enhancement films
  • Touch Screen Technologies
  • Backlighting
• Display Manufacturing
  • Facility design and layout
  • Process Engineering
  • Distribution and marketing channels
• Product Development
  • Software Design Capability: We have performed software design for all of our projects including a tailored documentation scheme based on MIL-STD-498. We have experience with the entire range of documentation necessary to lead to ISO-9001 certification for the software development process.
  • Embedded Firmware Design: We are experienced in all levels of embedded design from VLSI circuitry, FPGA programming, microcode development, assembly language programming, and cross compilers.
  • Efficient Algorithm Development: Industrial vision systems require high throughput. Customers do not want the inspection process to be a bottleneck for their production lines. We always strive to generate the most efficient algorithms possible in our machine vision software to keep inspection time to a minimum.
  • Multiple Development Languages: We have developed software using C/C++/C#, Java, LabVIEW, and TestStand.
  • Mechanical Engineering: We can do all necessary mechanical engineering and provide assembly drawings that are ready for prototype development and mass production.

Key Benefits:

• Faster time to market – Since we have already designed and/or developed many display products, we can transition them into your product platform without the upfront schedule impact usually required to develop new products.
• Lower development investment – If a new display product is needed, our staff can use its rapid prototyping infrastructure in order to breadboard and qualify new designs – fast.
• Minimized support costs – Since we provide the staff only when you need it, there is no wasted cost when the effort is not required.

VISION SYSTEMS EXPERTISE

CAPSTONE can develop or assist in creation of machine vision and image processing capabilities for your product.

Capabilities:

Component Selection

• Cameras and Sensors: Experience with multiple CCD and cMOS matrix and line scan cameras, spectrometers, and photodiode sensors.
• Lenses and Optics: We have performed extensive analysis of the optical properties of lenses so that appropriate tradeoffs can be made for varying applications.
• Illumination: We understand the lighting can make or break a vision project. We have a vast knowledge of illumination sources and issues relating to the different types of lighting.

Algorithm Design

• Machine Vision: We have extensive experience in all aspects of machine vision including lighting, optics, cameras, motion control, and image processing. Our range of display inspection products is a great example of our machine vision expertise. We also have significant experience in the use of structured lighting technology for 3-D gauging.
• Pattern Recognition: Our pattern recognition experience ranges from classifying roofing shingles to detecting patterns on displays. We can select from a wide range of tools depending on the application. These tools include geometric pattern matching, normalized correlation, texture analysis, nearest neighbor, neural networks, etc.
• Image/Signal Processing: Our machine vision products and integrated systems generally have a heavy image processing content. Our team also has significant signal processing experience with both acoustic and optical sensors.
• Dimensional Gauging: Our team is particularly strong in the area of dimensional gauging, especially for 3-D measurements. Examples of some our applications are fan blade edge geometry measurements and multi-blade razor cartridge gauging.
• OCR/OCV: Our team has experience in the use of OCR and OCV tools.
• Edge Finding: Our team has made extensive use of edge finding algorithms in many of our developed machine vision products and systems. We are well versed in most of the traditional edge enhancement and detection techniques.
• Image Segmentation: We use image segmentation techniques in our display inspection products to isolate regions of interest for further processing.
• Morphology: Our team uses morphological image processing techniques on a regular basis to process images. We can select from a full range of morphology filters including dilation, erosion, opening, closing filters in both binary and gray level. We can also select from a wide range of morphological algorithms including skeletonization, Danielson distance mapping, convex hull, hole filling, and separation algorithms.
• Geometric Analysis: Our team uses a wide range of geometric analysis algorithms including circle, ellipse, and line fitting algorithms. We also have developed algorithms for 3D geometry analysis. We have developed camera calibration algorithms for stereo vision and structured lighting systems that account for radial and perspective distortion.
• Noise Filtering: Our team uses a wide range of techniques for noise filtering including traditional convolution filters, FFTs, and morphological filters.
• Scene Analysis: We have performed scene analysis on occasion but this is not a crucial part of our toolkit or software.
• Neural Networks: We have experience with neural networks, most recently with applications to wireless networks of sensors.

Key Benefits

• Faster time to market – Since we have already developed many algorithms, we can transition them into your product platform without the upfront schedule impact usually required to develop such algorithms
• Lower development investment – If a new algorithm is needed, our staff can use its rapid prototyping infrastructure in order to breadboard and qualify new algorithms using our basis functions and tools.
• Minimized support costs – Since we provide the staff only when you need it, there is no wasted cost when the effort is not required.