Bridgestone Corporation

Hirotaka Iino

Tomohiro Mizuno

Tomoyuki Kaneko

Takao Kokubu

Yoshitaka Fujisawa

Akinobu Mizutani

Akira Togii

A separation filter selection device provided with an image input unit, a memory unit, a setting unit, an evaluation unit and a separation filter selection unit is disclosed. The image input unit inputs a captured image capturing a tire surface including a characteristic portion thereof. The memory unit stores plural filters for performing image processing of the captured image, stores a training image in which the characteristic portion is separated from the captured image, and a weighted image in which a weighting is set to a predetermined region of the captured image. The setting unit combines two or more filters out of the plural filters and sets a separation filter. The evaluation unit derives an evaluation value of the separation filter on the basis of an image in which a differential between the processed image that has been processed by each of the filters of the separation filter, and the training image, and to which a weighting based on the weighted image is applied. The separation filter selection unit repeats the setting of the setting unit and the evaluation value computation of the evaluation unit until the evaluation value is within a specific range, and selects the separation filter corresponding to the evaluation value resulting from the repeated processing as a separation filter for separating the characteristic portion from the captured image.

Separation filter selection device and tire inspection device

Disclosed is a tire surface inspecting technique capable of surely discriminating rubber pieces of a quality different from that of a tire embedded in the surface of the tire by vulcanization from the tire. A first illuminating unitinclude paired first light projectorsandthat project light respectively from opposite sides toward an objective line L on a tire T. A second illuminating unitinclude paired second light projectorsandthat project light respectively from opposite sides toward the objective line L in a direction different from that in which the first illuminating unitproject light. The first illuminating unitand the second illuminating unitoperate alternately for illumination. The line cameraforms an image of a part of the surface of the tire corresponding to the objective line L in synchronism with the respective illuminating operations of the first and second illuminating unit. Illumination and image formation are repeated for different parts of the surface of the tire that are moved successively to a position corresponding to the objective line L. Images formed by the line camera are analyzed for the inspection of the surface of the tire T.

Method and system for inspecting tire surface

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Kodaira, Japan

Hirotaka Iino