I recently developed a 3D void detection prototype system for the packaging industry.
The system will measure the empty volume inside of a box filled with contents. Once this volume is known, a subsequent system can optimize the number of packing peanuts required to fill up the box. By using this system, the filling of boxes with packing peanuts can be automated.
The Hardware and Software used to measure the empty volume are:
- 3D camera from IFM Electronic (part number PMD O3D201)
- Windows PC
- OpenCV (open source computer vision library)
- C#/Visual Studio 2008/.NET Framework 3.5
Since the 3D camera can output both gray scale and Cartesian coordinate values (X, Y, Z) for each pixel, implementing the solution is not very difficult.
The 3D camera sends the image data via TCP/IP to the PC. The C# program on the PC calculates the empty volume box by processing these images with OpenCV.
The system first measures the outer volume of the box. Then the system calculates the volume of the contents inside of the box. By subtracting the content volume from the outer volume, the empty volume inside the box is calculated.
Check out the video for more info:
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