Real-time object subspace searching based on discrete searching paths and local energy

In automatic visual inspection, the object image subspace should be segmented and matched quickly so that the affine relationship can be built between the template image and the sample image. When the interference is strong and the illumination is uneven, for example in an industrial application, this can make it difficult to obtain an objects subspace quickly and accurately in real-time. In this paper, a novel strategy is proposed to adopt discrete radial search paths instead of searching all points in an image. Therefore, the searching time can be substantially reduced. In order to reduce the influence coming from the industrial environment, the paper proposes another method that is local energy level set segmentation, which can locate the object subspace more efficiently and accurately. The detection of “crown caps” is presented as an example in this paper. Detection effects and computing time are compared between several detection methods, and the mechanisms of inspection have also been analyzed.