The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 23, 2001
Filed:
Mar. 11, 1994
Len L. Picard, Wilmington, MA (US);
Neil S. Levine, Ashland, MA (US);
Cognex Corporation, Natrick, MA (US);
Abstract
This invention provides an apparatus and method for locating a curvilinear symbol by generating a grey scale model of a segment of a curvilinear symbol and interpolating curvature at the segment's periphery; reflecting this segment around the axes of symmetry to generate a full size model; generating full resolution subfeature models; assigning coordinate axes weighting to each subfeature model x and y axis; defining tolerance thresholds for deviations from an idealized curvilinear symbol; searching a digitized image for shapes corresponding to the subfeature models; assigning weights to scores returned for positions found corresponding to the subfeature models; producing weighted positions combining both coordinate axis weighting and score weighting; computing a best fit for the image found; comparing the positions found to tolerance thresholds and discarding those positions outside the thresholds; substituting and weighting alternate positions found, if any, to compute the location of the curvilinear symbol from remaining positions within the threshold.