US 12,092,590 B2
Industrial tomography apparatus and method for checking the composition of industrial products which comprise a plurality of primary parts
Arianna Giudiceandrea, Bressanone (IT); Enrico Ursella, Mestre (IT); and Giancarlo Zane, Mestre (IT)
Assigned to BIOMETIC S.R.L., Bressanone (IT)
Filed by BIOMETIC S.R.L., Bressanone (IT)
Filed on Jul. 28, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/387,174.
Claims priority of application No. 102020000019243 (IT), filed on Aug. 4, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2022/0042931 A1, Feb. 10, 2022
Int. Cl. G01N 23/046 (2018.01); G01N 23/18 (2018.01); G06T 7/00 (2017.01); G06T 15/08 (2011.01); G06T 17/00 (2006.01)
CPC G01N 23/046 (2013.01) [G01N 23/18 (2013.01); G06T 7/0004 (2013.01); G06T 15/08 (2013.01); G06T 17/00 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An industrial tomography apparatus (1) comprising:
a conveying device (3), configured to feed to a scanning zone (4), and respectively remove from the scanning zone (4), products (2) to be inspected;
a tomography scan device (7) configured to perform tomography scans of the products (2) placed in the scanning zone (4); and
an electronic processing unit operatively connected to the tomography scan device (7) for receiving from it digital data about the tomography scans performed by the tomography scan device (7), and programmed to generate, using that digital data, a virtual three-dimensional tomography model (8) of a product (2) scanned by the tomography scan device (7), the virtual three-dimensional tomography model (8) being constituted of a plurality of voxels each of which has its own constant density;
wherein the electronic processing unit is also programmed to perform a procedure for inspecting a composition of products (2) of known type comprising a plurality of primary parts and having known features, wherein for the products (2) of known type the known features reflect the production and/or packaging specifications wherein during the inspection procedure the electronic processing unit inspects the virtual three-dimensional tomography model (8) to assess at least one of the following predetermined properties of the product (2): the position of one or more primary parts inside the product (2) and the total number of primary parts of a same type inside the product (2);
and wherein the inspection procedure which the electronic processing unit is programmed to perform for each product (2) of each known type, comprises the following operating steps:
a segmentation step, wherein in the three-dimensional tomography model (8), the electronic processing unit identifies a plurality of primary volumes (9), each of which is constituted of adjacent voxels which have densities inside a same predetermined range of densities, and each of which corresponds to one of the primary parts which constitute the real product (2);
an assessment step, wherein the electronic processing unit assesses one or more predetermined properties of one or more of the primary volumes (9) identified in that way;
a comparison step, wherein the electronic processing unit compares the predetermined properties assessed during the assessment step with corresponding reference values saved in an electronic memory, to verify if there is a match; and
a classification step, wherein the electronic processing unit supplies an indication of whether or not the comparison step has identified a match for the predetermined properties assessed.