Lovibond® CAM-System
500 Imaging Colorimeter
Image based Colour and Appearance
Measurement System
• Generates an objective, pass-fail
assessment for QC in seconds
• Ideal for natural and industrial
products with detailed or non-uniform colour variation
• Simultaneously assesses the whole
image or multiple areas of interest
• Non contact technology that is
unaffected by product consistency or texture
• Operated without knowledge of
colour science or image analysis
• Includes controlled environment for
sample illumination and viewing
• Additional potential for dimension
and shape measurement
A New Approach to Quantifying Colour &
Appearance
Overall visual appearance is a
major feature in the assessment and control of product quality. The
Lovibond® CAM-System
500 is an imaging colorimeter that presents a new approach to quantifying
colour and appearance; it is an innovative QC inspection system that
allows the user to decide quickly and objectively whether a product
meets acceptable colour and appearance criteria or if it has undesirable
defects. Based on digital imaging technology, the CAM-System 500
uses acceptable samples to generate a reference profile for the product,
including minimum and maximum limits, then captures quantitative image
data, which are compared to a generated from acceptable samples.
Now with improved functionality
The CAM-System now offers updated
functionality , coupled with a simplified user interface.
Additional benefits of the system include enhanced
regions of interest, automatic boundary location, advanced
object detection and additional statistical information such as
ratiometric colour area (allowing direct comparison of object
colour features).
Advantages of an Imaging Colorimeter
A digital image records colour
data at thousands of points, providing detailed information about colour
distribution and variations across a sample. As such, the Lovibond® CAM-System
500 is particularly well suited to measuring natural and industrial
products with non-uniform or variable colour properties that cannot
be measured easily with conventional colorimetric spectrophotometers.
It can process the whole image or simultaneously measure multiple
regions of interest or colours (up to 32 per product type). The
measurement area is also flexible, from small up to 240 mm. Furthermore,
the non-contact technology means that sample measurement is unaffected
by product consistency or surface texture. For more advanced image
processing applications, the system has the added potential for dimension
and shape measurement, so in one measurement both the colours and dimensions
of a selected sample can be displayed and saved.
Image Processing for a QC Environment
The hardware components include a digital
colour camera, image capture cabinet, controlled sample
illumination and an embedded PC, all designed to function
within an industrial QC environment. The system
quantifies appearance by capturing an image and expressing each
pixel in terms of its rgb components; it employs ‘blob
extraction’ to isolate regions of interest from the
image, allowing the operator to exclude backgrounds or
highlight particular product features. A time profile
screen allows the user to capture a sequence of images at set
intervals and to display the results in a line chart. A
reports screen displays the results of previous tests in
tabular format. The results may be sorted in product
type, test or date order.
Easy for Operators to Use
The Lovibond® CAM-System
500 entails separate supervisor and operator modes. The supervisor
has access to a set-up menu where they employ actual samples to establish
the quality parameters for a particular product, including regions of
interest and acceptable threshold limits. All the operator has
to do is call up the product settings and measure the sample to generate
a pass-fail assessment, without knowledge of colour science or image
analysis.