JPH0238980B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (1) Technical Field The present invention relates to an image recognition device, and more particularly to an article inspection device that performs a keyboard layout inspection device and the like.

(2) Background of the Technology With the recent development of integrated circuit technology, there has been an increasing need for high-speed image processing, especially image recognition for automatically finding differences between two images. Images include gradation images in which each pixel of the image corresponds to shading, and binary images in which each pixel is black or white. There are grayscale images such as general television images, and binary images such as character images. Such image recognition technology is applied in a wide variety of fields, one of which is inspection of articles. In other words, in the manufacturing process of a factory, images of non-defective products are stored in a reference memory, that is, a dictionary memory, in order to automatically compare images of non-defective products to determine whether the products that are continuously manufactured are the correct products. Inspection of the article is performed by digitally comparing images of the actual article that have been taken.

The present invention relates to such an article inspection device using image recognition, and in particular, when mass-producing a keyboard device, which is a terminal device for a computer system, in a factory, appropriate key tops are mounted at correct positions on the keyboard baseboard. The present invention relates to an article inspection device that automatically inspects whether or not the article has been inspected by image recognition.

(3) Prior Art and Problems Conventionally, in such article inspection devices, especially keyboard layout inspection devices, humans have to recognize where on the keyboard baseboard a specified key top should be mounted. A human operator moves the stage on which the keyboard is placed, positions it, and specifies the type of key top, that is, the master pattern, which is the character pattern on the key top. As a result, inspections take a very long time, and the problem of incorrect instructions by workers remains unsolved.

(4) Purpose of the Invention The present invention automatically inspects whether the correct key tops are arranged at the correct position on the base board of an article, such as a key base board. The position where the key top should be inserted is detected from the image, and based on that position information, the character pattern of each key, that is, the master pattern is created by using the image of the next good keyboard, that is, the keyboard with the key top inserted. It is possible to completely automatically inspect items such as keytop patterns by cutting out and then comparing each keytop image of the keyboard to be inspected, which is successively sent, with the keytop master pattern. The present invention provides an article inspection device.

(5) Structure of the Invention The present invention provides an apparatus for inspecting an article consisting of a first member and a second member having a positional relationship with the first member. A first means for detecting and storing information, and a second means for cutting out and storing image information of the first member in a non-defective item based on image information of the second member. The object of the present invention is to provide an article inspection device comprising means for comparing image information of the first member and image information of a non-defective first member based on the position information.

(6) Embodiment of the Invention Next, taking a keyboard layout inspection device as an example of the article inspection device of the present invention, FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an embodiment thereof.

The feeding mechanism 1 is a so-called belt conveyor, and moves in the direction of the arrow. The key base board 2 placed first in the direction of movement of the feeding mechanism 1 is a base board on which a key top is not yet mounted, and is an article as shown in FIG. 2a. Now, while illuminating the keyboard baseboard with light using the lighting device 4, take an image of the keyboard baseboard from above using an imaging device 5 such as a TV camera or line sensor.
When passed through the binarization circuit 6, the top view of the keyboard baseboard becomes an image as shown in FIG. 2b when viewed as a static binary image. This is called a keyboard baseboard image. In the key baseboard image, the circular parts are images of each key baseboard shown in FIG. 2a, corresponding to the positions where key tops are to be inserted. One circular pattern within this binary image is called a key base master pattern, and is as shown in FIG. 2c.

By pattern matching the key base master pattern from this one-frame image of the key base board and finding the key base pattern, you can conversely find the image where the key top should be inserted, that is, the X, Y coordinates. .

In the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, a frame memory 7 that stores a memory for one image is connected to the output of the binarization circuit 6, so that the keyboard baseboard image shown in FIG. 2b is First, it is stored in this frame memory 7. The position detection circuit 13 is a circuit that detects the position at which a key top is to be inserted, that is, the key base pattern, from the key base board image stored in the frame memory 7. To do this, binary image information of the key base master pattern is stored as a reference image in the key base master pattern memory 11 in the master memory 9, and the image of the key base master pattern is imported from the key base master pattern memory 11. reading,
By outputting each pixel value of the key baseboard image stored in the frame memory 7, it is controlled to be compared with the output value from the key base master pattern memory 11 by the pattern matching circuit 8. . If the pattern matching circuit 8 matches the output of the frame memory 7 and the output of the key base master pattern memory 11 in a partial area of the image, that is,
If the pattern in the key base board image (FIG. 2b) in the frame memory 7 matches the key base master pattern, the matching position is stored in the position memory 14 as position information of the key base on the X, Y coordinates, for example. The position detection circuit 13 controls the position detection circuit 13 to store the data. Since this key base master pattern matching operation is performed over the entire area of the key base board image, the position memory 14 stores the position information of all the key bases on the keyboard base board image. That is, the key base board image from the key base board is compared with the key base master pattern stored in the key base master pattern memory 11, and the position of the key base, that is, the key top is detected and stored in the position memory 14. is the first stage.

After completing this first step, the feed mechanism 1 advances one step in the direction of the arrow, and the keyboard next to the key base board 2 is located directly below the imaging device 5, i.e., the keyboard is a good product with the correct key tops mounted in the correct position. A new keyboard, ie, a master keyboard 31, is sent to the user.

The master keyboard 31 is an article as shown in FIG. 3a, and is a keyboard in which several types of key tops with characters written on them are mounted at correct positions on the keyboard.

When this master keyboard is imaged by the imaging device 5 and passed through the binarization circuit 6, the top view of the master keyboard becomes a binarized key top image as shown in FIG. 3b. frame memory 7
is stored in In the article inspection apparatus of the present invention, the keytop image obtained from the master keyboard is used to perform an operation of cutting out each keytop image from the entire one frame image. The circuit for this purpose is the master creation circuit 15. This key top extraction can be done very quickly if the position of each key top on the frame image is known in advance. Therefore, the key top position information stored in the position memory 14 is used as the position information. That is, the master creation circuit 15 inputs key top position information from the position memory 14 based on position information indicating where each key base is located on the keyboard base board, and also inputs key top position information from the position memory 14 based on the position information indicating the position of each key base on the keyboard base board. On the keytop image in Figure 3b, which is information obtained by converting the top view of the keyboard into a binary form,
The character pattern of the keytop at the keytop position, that is, the keytop master pattern, is cut out and output, and the cutout keytop master pattern of each keytop is stored in the keytop master pattern memory 10 in the master memory 9.
In the second step, each keytop image is cut out and stored as imaged data in the keytop master pattern memory 10 as a correct keytop image at the correct position of each keytop.
Therefore, after passing through the first and second steps described above, the image data in which the correct key top pattern is arranged at the correct position, that is, the image data corresponding to the master keyboard, is stored in the key top master pattern memory 10.
It will be stored in .

Next, as a third step, the inspection of the board to be inspected begins. That is, the feeding mechanism 1 moves again in the direction of the arrow, and the keyboard 3 to be inspected is placed directly below the imaging device 5.
2, a keyboard arrives that must be inspected for the correct keytops in the correct positions. The top view data of the keyboard 32 to be inspected is 2.
The data is stored in the frame memory 7 via the value conversion circuit 6. In this inspection, the keytop image of the board 32 to be inspected, which is controlled by the inspection determination circuit 12 and stored in the frame memory 7, and the master keyboard image, which is a non-defective product, stored in the keytop master pattern memory 10, are pattern matched. The signals are added to the circuit 8 and compared by pattern matching. The comparison result as to whether each correct key top is placed in the correct position is applied to the inspection/judgment circuit 12. In this inspection/judgment cycle 12, upon receiving the output from the position memory 14, a high-speed inspection is carried out while cutting out the position where the key top exists, and the inspection result output 16 is output.

The above explanation can be summarized as follows. That is, in the above embodiment of the article inspection device of the present invention, in the first step when creating a master pattern, the key base board 2 placed on the feeding mechanism 1 is
(a board before the keytop is mounted) is imaged by an imaging device 5, and the imaged signal is binarized by a binarization circuit 6 and stored in a frame memory 7. At this time,
As shown in FIG. 2b, the key base board 2 has a constant shape regardless of the type of key top. Here, the key base master pattern is input to the key base master pattern memory 11, and pattern matching is performed between it and the key base board image (inside the frame memory 7) shown in FIG. The position is detected by the position detection circuit 13, and the detected position information is stored in the position memory 14. This position is where the key top should be. Next, in the second step, the keyboard 31 equipped with the key top is moved to the sample feeding mechanism 1.
is introduced into the field of view of the imaging device 5. A keytop image as shown in FIG. 3b is input to the frame memory 7. The master creation circuit 15 automatically inputs the key top position and master pattern by storing the key top master pattern in the key top master pattern memory 10 according to the key base position in the position memory 14. becomes possible.

During the third stage inspection, the image of the inspection keyboard 32 is input into the frame memory 7, the inspection judgment circuit 12 drives the pattern matching circuit 8, and the keytop master pattern memory 10 and position memory storing the correct image are input. 14 is used to conduct the inspection.

(7) Effects of the Invention The present invention utilizes the fact that the keyboard baseboard has a constant shape regardless of the type of keytops, and uses the keyboard data to easily detect the positions where the keytops are arranged as position data. However, the master keyboard data can be automatically stored in the keytop master pattern memory using this keytop position data and the keytop data extracted from each keytop. Since it is no longer necessary to move the keys to form data in the keytop master pattern memory, there is an effect that inspection of articles such as keyboards can be completely automated.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
Figure a is a perspective view of the key baseboard before key tops are mounted, figure b is a plan view showing an image of the upper surface of the key base board shown in figure a, and figure c is a diagram of the key base master pattern corresponding to one key top in figure a. FIG. 3A is a perspective view of a keyboard with a keytop mounted thereon, and FIG. 3B is a plan view showing an image of the keytop on the upper surface of the keyboard shown in FIG. 3A. 1... Feeding mechanism, 2... Key base board, 3
1... Master keyboard, 32... Keyboard to be inspected, 4... Lighting device, 5... Imaging device, 6...
Binarization circuit, 7... Frame memory, 8... Pattern matching circuit, 9... Master memory, 10
...Key top master pattern memory, 11...
Key base master pattern memory, 12... Inspection determination circuit, 13... Position detection circuit, 14... Position memory, 15... Master creation circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first member and a second member having a positional relationship therewith.
In an apparatus for inspecting an article made of members, the apparatus includes a first means for detecting and storing positional information of the second member based on image information of the second member; a second means for cutting out and storing based on the image information of the second member; and comparing the image information of the first member of the inspected article and the image information of the non-defective first member based on the position information; An article inspection device comprising: 2. The article inspection device includes an article imaging device, a binarization circuit, and a frame memory, and the first means includes an article base master pattern memory that stores an article base pattern before article mounting; and an article base position detection circuit for detecting the position of the article base, and the second means includes a master pattern memory for storing an image of a non-defective article, and an article base position detection circuit for detecting the position of the article mounted on the article base based on the article base position information. 2. The article inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a master creation circuit for storing an image pattern in the master pattern memory, and wherein the comparison circuit includes a pattern matching circuit. 3. The first means includes a key base master pattern memory that stores the pattern of the key base before the key top is mounted, and a key base pattern memory at the position where the key top is to be inserted from the image of the key base board before the key top is mounted. It consists of a detection means for extracting features from an image and detecting the position, and a position memory for storing information on the position, and the second means detects the position from a good reference master keyboard with correct key tops mounted in the correct position. It consists of a cutting means for cutting out each obtained key top image using the position information from the position memory, and a key top master pattern storage memory for storing the cut out key top images, and the comparing means The article inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an inspection determination circuit that compares a keytop image with a correct keytop image from the keytop master storage memory using positional information from the positional memory. .