The activity of the laboratory in the field of 2D vision has begun in parallel with the activities carried out in the 3D profilometry area. In fact, the development of 3D vision inherently requires deep insight in 2D vision.

Since 1990 the Group has been working in the area of image processing, with particular interest to the implementation of procedures for image enhancement (both linear and nonlinear), and   for camera calibration, in view of increasing the performences of the 3D systems of the Laboratory.

Over the years, the rapid increasing of harware performances and the decreasing of the cost of the instrumentation (hardware and software), has led us to look at 2D vision as to an independent field of activity. This trend was justified also by the increasing interest of industry into optical solutions of inspection problems, as well as by the impressive exploitment of vision and image processing in medicine.

Recently, the integration of vision with robots has gained considerable attention from industry. Pick and Place, sorting, assembling, cutting and welding processes are examples of applications which can have great advantage from the combination of information from images (both 2D and 3D!) with robot motion. In this context our laboratory has recently started a collaboration with a robot company (DENSO EUROPE B.V.), aimed at (i) developing and testing suitable vision procedures and (ii) integrating them in the robot control system.

Finally, the possibility of teaching 2D Vision in the frame of university courses has pushed us toward the development of suitable 2D vision stations, which reveal very useful for education and Ph.D. research projects.

The following pages report on the above mentioned activities.