Proceedings Article | 26 February 2004
KEYWORDS: Image processing, Control systems, Cameras, Visualization, Databases, Image analysis, 3D image processing, Image compression, Distributed computing, Internet
Myriad is a framework for building networked and distributed vision systems and is described in a companion paper in this conference. Myriad allows the components of a multi-camera, multi-user vision system (web-cameras, image processing engines, intelligent device controllers, databases and the user interface terminals) to be interconnected and operated together, even if they are physically separated by many hundreds, or thousands, of kilometres. This is achieved by operating them as Internet services. The principal objective in this article is to illustrate the simplicity of harmonising visual control with an existing system using Myriad. However, packing of 2-dimensional blob-like objects is of
considerable commercial importance in some industries and involves robotic handling and/or cutting. The shapes to be packed may be cut from sheet metal, glass, cloth, leather, wood, card, paper, composite board, or flat food materials. In addition, many 3D packing applications can realistically be tackled only by regarding them as multi-layer 2D applications. Using Myriad to perform 2D packing, a set of blob-like input objects ("shapes") can be digitised using a
standard camera (e.g. a "webcam"). The resulting digital images are then analysed, using a separate processing engine, perhaps located on a different continent. The packing is planned by another processing system, perhaps on a third continent. Finally, the assembly is performed using a robot, usually but not necessarily, located close to the camera.
