JPH05165960A - Number deciding method for uniform granular material - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To surely decide the number of the uniform granular material with high precision by finding direction vectors between contour constitution picture elements in order and calculating the angles of the direction vectors to a reference direction. CONSTITUTION:The direction vectors between the contour constitution picture elements of each pattern in picture elements are found successively and the angles of the direction vectors to the reference direction are calculated. Then a decision device 100 decides whether of not particles adhere according to the number of polarity change points of variation of the angles and also decides the number of the particles. Namely, when there is no polarity change point, it is considered that the particles are independently present, but when there is the polarity change point, the number of the particles is decided while it is decided that the particles adhere by the number. Consequently, the quantity of the uniform granular material which is optionally present and of optional size (area of each particle) can surely be decided with high precision as well as whether or not the material adheres and its number.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for determining the number of uniform granular substances by determining the number of uniform granular substances from their appearance.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is a method of matching an input pattern with a standard pattern stored in advance in a pattern matching device for characters, figures, etc.
1-169583).

[0003]

The conventional method is a method of pattern-matching a target image with a reference image. The target image is moved by several pixels with respect to the reference image, and the similarity is successively determined for determination. Since it is necessary, there is a problem that the processing takes time. In addition, the number of substances that are present by adhesion cannot be determined.

Furthermore, the size of the input pattern is required to be known in advance. The present invention provides a method for reliably and accurately determining the number of uniform particulate matter of arbitrary size (the area of one particle) that exists in an arbitrarily dispersed manner, together with the presence or absence of adhesion and the number thereof. To aim.

[0005]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a method for determining the number of uniform granular substances, which is for determining the number of uniform granular substances that are present in an arbitrarily dispersed manner. The transmitted light is imaged as a binary image, the boundary of each pattern in the imaged image is traced, the position information of the contour constituent pixels is sequentially stored, and the direction vector between pixels in the contour constituent pixels is sequentially obtained. The angle formed by the direction vector with respect to the reference direction is calculated, and the presence or absence of particle adhesion is determined from the number of inflection points of the change in the angle, and the number of particles is determined.

[0006]

According to the present invention, the direction vector between pixels in the contour constituent pixels of each pattern in the image is sequentially obtained, the angle formed by the direction vector with the reference direction is calculated, and the number of inflection points of the change in the angle is calculated. From the above, whether or not the particles are adhered is determined, and the number of the particles is determined. That is, if there is no inflection point, it is determined that the particles exist alone, and if there is an inflection point, it is determined that the particles are bonded by that number, and the number is obtained. Therefore, it is possible to reliably and accurately determine the number of uniformly granular substances of arbitrary size (the area of one particle) that are present in an arbitrarily dispersed state, together with the presence or absence of adhesion and the number thereof.

[0007]

1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an apparatus for carrying out the determination method according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an algorithm of the determination method, FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an input image, and FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method of obtaining an angle formed by a direction vector between pixels and a reference direction, and FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of obtaining the number of inflection points of a certain input pattern.

In the image pickup section 10 of the judgment apparatus 100 shown in FIG. 1, 12 is an object such as a spacer for a liquid crystal panel dispersed on glass, which is illuminated by an illuminating device 11.
Although not shown here, the transmitted light is imaged by the CCD camera 13 through a microscope, and the image signal is processed by the processing device 2.
Input to 0.

In the A / D conversion circuit 21 in the processing device 20,
The input image signal is converted into a digital signal, and further 2
The binarization circuit 22 converts the binary signal into a binary signal at a predetermined level and sends the binary signal to the image memory 23 via the CPU 24. The RAM 25 is used as a working memory.

The result processed by the processing device 22 is sent to an output unit 30 such as a monitor, and the total number of particles of the object 12 and the number of adhered particles are output.

The processing procedure in the processing device 20 will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. 2 by taking the input image of FIG. 3 as an example.

(1) The binary image is raster-scanned, an unprocessed pattern is found, the boundary is traced, and the position information of the contour constituent pixels is sequentially stored in the RAM.

(2) For each pattern, the directional vector of the contour constituent pixels between pixels separated by one boundary is sequentially obtained, and the angle formed by the directional vector and the reference direction is obtained (see FIG. 4).

In the figure, pixel numbers are given to the boundary pixels of the pattern. Pixels separated by one boundary are, for example, 3 and 5,
If the reference direction is horizontal as shown in the figure, the angle between the direction vector and the reference direction is 270 degrees. This is the pixel number 1
Ask about 30 from. FIG. 5 shows an example of the change in angle obtained for this pattern.

(3) If there is no inflection point in the change in the angle obtained in (2) above, it is judged that the particles exist independently, and if there is an inflection point, the particles are bonded by the number. It is determined that they are doing, and the number is obtained.

In the example of FIG. 5 obtained for the pattern of FIG. 4, since there are two inflection points which are convex downward, it is recognized that two particles are bonded. That is, it is understood that the pattern of FIG. 4 was an adhesion pattern of two particles.

From the above (1) to (3), the output results of Table 1 were obtained for the input image of FIG.

[Table 1]

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention, the number of uniform particles having an arbitrary size (area of one particle) existing in an arbitrarily dispersed state can be accurately determined together with the presence or absence of adhesion and the number thereof. Can be reliably determined with.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an apparatus for carrying out a determination method according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an algorithm of a determination method.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an input image.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method of obtaining an angle formed by a direction vector between pixels and a reference direction.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of obtaining the number of inflection points of an input pattern.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100 Judgment device 10 Imaging unit 11 Illumination device 12 Object 13 CCD camera 20 Processing device 21 A / D conversion circuit 22 Binarization circuit 23 Image memory 24 CPU 25 RAM 30 Output unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A method for determining the number of uniform granular substances, which determines the number of uniform granular substances that are arbitrarily dispersed and which comprises projecting light from below a determination target and transmitting the transmitted light as a binary image. An image is captured, the boundary of each pattern in the captured image is tracked, the position information of the contour constituent pixels is sequentially stored, the direction vector between pixels in the contour constituent pixel is sequentially obtained, and the direction vector is the reference direction. Calculate the angle you make,
A method for determining the number of uniform particulate matter, characterized in that the presence or absence of particle adhesion is determined from the number of inflection points of the change in the angle and the number of particles is determined.