3D vision tools for industrial automation
Zebra Technologies is working closely with its manufacturing customers and industrial automation partners to bridge the gap between logistics and manufacturing industry need for 3D technologies and the upskilling required among industrial automation and machine vision builders and integrators.
“Logistics, automotive, electric battery, electronics and other manufacturing sectors are faced with scenarios that only 3D inspection, analysis and robotic guidance can solve, which means the best solutions and expertise needs to be available to help them,” said Stephan Pottel (pictured right), Manufacturing Strategy Director, EMEA, Zebra Technologies.
“However, the pace of advancement in the field is rapid, and the integration of new approaches including paralleled structured light – where multiple light patterns are projected simultaneously for faster data collection – mean the knowledge gap needs to be closed.”
Fifty-four percent of manufacturing leaders in Europe expect AI to drive growth by 2029 and 71% plan to reskill labour to enhance data and technology usage, yet 84% say they are struggling to keep up with the pace of technological innovation, according to Zebra’s Manufacturing Vision Study.
Meanwhile, 55% of warehouse decision-makers hope automation will increase worker efficiency and productivity, and 53% hope it will reduce order errors and manual picking, according to Zebra’s Warehousing Vision Study. Plus, 82% agree giving warehouse workers more technology tools will help them exceed productivity goals.
“We relentlessly pursue innovation, focus on customer commitment, and have a leading ecosystem, so we are well-suited to support the industry,” said Pottel. “Manufacturers, warehousing and logistics organisations are already benefitting from 3D solutions from Zebra and our partners. In the past 12 months alone, we’ve launched our pioneering 3S Series High Resolution 3D Sensors and AltiZ 4200 3D Profile Sensor. These complement our Aurora machine vision software suite with 3D tools to create the solutions the industry needs.”
3D software tools the industry needs
What sorts of software tools should machine builders and integrators be looking for alongside sensor hardware? Pottel sets out some of the key features they should be leveraging when developing solutions:
3D surface matcher: Helps identify and locate complex shapes in a 3D space, which is useful in various applications like quality inspection and automation. The software captures a 3D image of an object using a 3D camera. The tool looks for specific patterns or shapes within that 3D image and can identify multiple similar shapes at different angles. It uses colour information to help distinguish between similar surfaces and provides details about how many occurrences of the surface were found, their positions, and other relevant data.
3D shape finding: Locates specific shapes like cylinders, spheres, planes, and boxes within a 3D point cloud. For each shape found, the software provides details like the number of occurrences, score, error, number of points and coordinates.
3D blob analysis: Makes it possible to segment a point cloud into blobs, calculate numerous blob features, filter and sort blobs by features, as well as select and combine blobs, so users can locate and inspect objects in a point cloud.
3D metrology: Fits point clouds or depth maps to shapes like cylinders, lines, planes, or spheres. Vision software helps compute distances and statistics between these maps and objects and can also determine volume in different ways. It’s useful for precise measurement and quality assessments in manufacturing.
3D measurement: Finds transitions in profiles extracted from depth maps. Profiles can be in each row, arbitrary, or perpendicular to a specified template. Controls are available over profile extraction and transition computation. The software tool returns a rich number of details on transitions, profiles and fitted geometries.
3D registration: Establishes the alignment of two or more depth maps or point clouds and merges them together if required. This tool provides the means to perform high-accuracy analysis between a 3D model and target, do full object reconstruction from multiple neighbouring 3D scans, and align the data from multiple 3D camera or sensors.
In March 2025, Zebra announced its acquisition of Photoneo, a leading developer and manufacturer of 3D cameras and software for vision-guided robotics solutions. The 3D segment of the machine vision market is the fastest growing, and this acquisition further accelerates Zebra’s presence in the category.
By combining Photoneo’s 3D cameras and software for vision-guided robotics solutions with Zebra’s 3D sensors and Aurora software for 3D analysis and inspection, customers benefit from a unique portfolio of offerings to address their most challenging use cases. These include high value applications such as bin picking, depalletising, creating digital twins, and inspecting objects used in automotive manufacturing, logistics and other key markets.
