Sheet-of-Light Application

There are those who say it’s impossible to make money selling machine vision systems because the applications are all ones and twos. I wouldn’t disagree with that: many integrators lose money on the first system, which is really little more than a prototype, and hope to make it back on repeat orders. So everyone wants to find an application where multiple systems are needed.

MicroPoise Measurement Systems seem to have done just that. True, they’re not a machine vision integrator in the general sense – they build tire inspection equipment – but they have found an interesting 3D application with lots of replication potential.

The product I’m talking about is the “Tire Geometry Inspection System with Sheet of Light” or TGIS-SL for short. This uses a laser line, (hence the “sheet of light”) to illuminate the surface of a tire. From this, 3D information is extracted.

Now the thing I can’t figure out is where the cameras are mounted. I’ve been through all the photos on their website and couldn’t see a single one. So what am I missing? Is it possible to do laser triangulation without a camera? If so, how?

Take a look, and if you can figure it out, post a comment to let the rest of us know.