Using the USAF 1951 target

Most of us in machine vision have seen this target, but I’ll reproduce it here anyway.

It’s a pretty familiar sight, but how many of us know how to use it? I didn’t, until I read “Targeted Test” by Greg Hollows of Edmund Optics and published on the Vision Systems Design website March 1^st, 2010. (Yes it’s an oldie, but it’s a goodie too.)

The key thing to know is that this can give you the resolution of your imaging system, in line pairs per millimeter, providing you understand the logic of groups and elements.

Now I could repeat here what Greg explains so well in the actual article, but that would be a lot like plagiarism, and besides, I don’t want to fall out with the Editor of VSD. So click the link and become a little wiser. (They’d probably like it if you clicked on a few of the ads too.)

To be fair, here's where I lifted the target image from:

http://store.prepressexpress.com/en/scanner-targets/873-silverfast-usaf-1951-resolution-target.html