3D Printing Optics for Machine Vision Lighting Systems

Machine vision lighting systems assist in supervising work environments, most with an industrial character. They offer features such as process control, robotic guidance, and automatic inspection of industrial applications. Industrial production and manufacturing activities are becoming more and more complicated, creating difficulties and increasing unreliability for the human eye to keenly detect, observe, and examine production activities.

Machine Vision Lighting Market Insights

The global machine vision market size was estimated at USD 9.10 billion in 2016, following a research conducted by Grand View Research. The increasing demand for quality inspection and automation in different industries is likely to drive the overall industry in the next years.

Chart of the Machine Vision Lighting Market Development by Grand View Research used to illustrate the market potential of 3D printed optics by Luximprint Germany machine vision market revenue by application, 2014 – 2025 (USD Million) by Grand View Research.

In addition, the need for vision-guided robotic systems across automotive, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, chemical and packaging industries is expected to rise. The surge in demand for application-oriented machine vision systems is also boosting the adoption of the technology over the forecast period.

Machine Vision Lighting Applications

For any of those markets, lighting is used to contrast features. By applying the correct machine vision lighting, features within images can be repeatedly captured. If the lighting is incorrectly specified, the success, reliability, repeatability, and ease of use of the overall machine vision system are at risk.

The systems are composed of multiple components, including frames, lighting, printed optics and lenses, processors, intelligent software and displays. While simple machine vision systems can identify 2D or 3D barcodes, more sophisticated systems can inspect parts and make sure they meet specific tolerances, check the correctness of an assembly, and make sure defected parts will be excluded.

To ensure the correct types of lighting are employed, we advise designers to consult with lighting manufacturers and/or develop an image lighting lab to test various lighting options. Here, Luximprint comes in with an interesting concept: 3D printed optical plastics for fast trial and error of the best optical solutions, making sure that the lighting system performs as expected. In a fast, flexible and cost-effective manner, multiple solutions can be tested, enabling finally to pick and choose the best performing one. In some cases, small start-up series might be additively produced as well.

Image of a 3D printed lens array for machine vision lighting applications 3D printed lens array by Luximprint. Choosing the correct lighting optics is extremely important for the performance of Machine Vision systems.

Vision Lighting Illuminators

Although fluorescent, halogen (fiber-driven) and xenon strobe lights are still used in machine vision systems these days, LED lighting is rapidly replacing these technologies. Its great uniformity, extended lifespan, reliability and stability over time are attractive, along with the energy saving aspects. Available in a variety of LED colors, LED lighting can also be strobed: a feature thats proven to be very useful in high-speed machine vision applications.

Lightfield and Darkfield Illumination

Aside from the type of lighting, one of the most important factors that will determine how an image appears is the angle at which the light falls on the object to be inspected. Two of the most popular means to illuminate an object are darkfield and brightfield illumination, controlled by LED optics.

Image showing darkfield and lightfield principle in machine vision lighting for illustration of Luximprint vision lighting optics pages.

The Darkfield and Lightfield lighting principle in machine vision systems. Picture courtesy of Microscan.

Darkfield Illumination

Darkfield illumination is produced by using low-angle lighting. On an object with a perfectly flat, mirror-smooth surface, all the light emanating from the object will fall outside the field of view of the camera. The surface of the object will then appear dark, while light from any part of the surface that may exhibit a defect or a scratch will be captured by the camera.

Brightfield Illumination

Brightfield illumination is the opposite of darkfield illumination. Here, the lighting is placed above the part to be imaged. Hence the light reflected from the object will fall within the field of view of the imager. In a brightfield lighting configuration, any discontinuity on the surface will reflect light away from the imager and appear dark. Thus, the technique is used to illuminate diffuse non-reflective objects.

Image of 3D printed ringlight for illustration of machine vision lighting archives Ringlights for machine vision lighting applications can easily be 3D printed.

Rapid Prototyping Optics for Machine Vision

Typical lenses include ringlights, telecentric lights, dome lights, barlights, backlights, line lights and tunnel lights. For almost any of those lens types, we’ve build a track record with projects over the recent years when it comes to rapid prototyping the of the lenses for functional design approval or inspirational purposes, e.g. tradeshow demonstrators.

Image showing examples of machine vision lighting solutions for illustration of 3D printed optics applications Various machine vision lighting solutions are available to build the best performing inspection system. Picture courtesy of HHB.

Want to learn more? Please get in touch with us!

At Luximprint, we are proud to work with a broad range of specialist machine vision firms, supporting them in their development and shortening the development cycle.

Are you interested to work with us? We’re keen to learn how we can support you on your projects, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us in case of any further questions or remarks.

This post was kindly inspired by Vision Systems.