Data Vision, a business unit of Batenburg Mechatronica, is one of the most established brands in Benelux’s imaging and machine vision industry and has been successfully providing machine vision components, systems and solutions for many years.

“The acquisition by Stemmer Imaging is the logical next step in serving this market segment,” says Harm Hanekamp, managing director of Data Vision. “By being part of the Stemmer Imaging Group, Data Vision will reach the next level and we can now follow our customers into Europe and benefit from Stemmer Imaging’s larger product range, and superior level of competence. Our corporate cultures are very similar and we know each other very well. This will strengthen services available for customers in the Benelux countries who will have access to the support and security they need to continue to develop their vision applications with our help.”

Dietmar Serbée, director of Stemmer Imaging emphasises the growth opportunities of the combined entity. “Stemmer Imaging’s and Data Vision’s product portfolio have a high degree of overlap in terms of suppliers represented. Thus, the businesses perfectly complement each other.”

According to Mr Serbée, machine vision components manufacturers will also greatly benefit from the merger: “The acquisition of Data Vision by Stemmer Imaging is also beneficial for our suppliers, due to the doubling of the sales and support workforce through a competent partner with a high degree of market know-how and technical expertise. As one of Europe’s largest imaging technology providers, this enables us to support the technological developments of our manufacturers even better for the benefit of our customers.”

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AL-KO Kober SE, founded in 1931 by Alois Kober as a small locksmith’s workshop in Grosskoetz near Guenzberg in Bavarian Swabia, is today one of the leading suppliers of automotive technology, gardening implements and air-conditioning technology with a total of 45 locations and around 4,000 employees worldwide. Now in the third generation, the family-owned company is still run as its founder intended – with a constant striving towards quality, innovative spirit and sophisticated functionality coupled with contemporary design, comfort and reliability.

Stemmer Imaging will form a self-contained division of the AL-KO Group alongside the existing segments of air conditioning, gardening technology and electronics. Stefan Kober, president of AL-KO, said: “Industrial image processing technologies are an integral component of the increasing digitization and networking of industrial processes. By absorbing Stemmer Imaging into the AL-KO Group we are taking a big step in our positioning in the Industry 4.0 environment.”

Christof Zollitsch, managing partner of Stemmer Imaging, said: “On behalf of the company’s founder Wilhelm Stemmer and the entire workforce, I’m delighted to have found a partner in AL-KO that not only understands our company and our market, but also shares and fosters our economic goals and the associated growth potential.”

Stemmer Imaging will continue to be managed by the long-standing management team. Christof Zollitsch is responsible for sales, order processing, marketing and finance, while Martin Kersting takes care of technology, support, software development, production and information technology.

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Now in its third edition, the handbook acts as an invaluable reference guide for machine vision users as well as providing up-to-date information on products and suppliers. The 450 pages are packed with the latest information on machine vision technologies from the fields of illumination, optics, cameras, acquisition, software, cabling, systems and accessories.

Around one third of the content is devoted to the fundamentals of machine vision, with explanations of the various technologies supported by clear graphics designed to illustrate complex subjects in a very understandable way.

The handbook also profiles Stemmer Imaging’s major suppliers and their product portfolios and contains all the key technical data. Clearly arranged tables provide all the details needed in order to select the best vision components for a particular application.

In addition to the printed version, the new handbook is also available for the first time on-line in both English and German and will also be followed on an updated version of Stemmer Imaging’s Visiondocs platform available across Apple and Android devices with enhanced search, bookmarking and annotation capabilities.

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Vision–enabled robotic pick and place is a well established technique, but here a novel pattern matching tool, CVB Polimago is used to determine the position, pose and rotation of the items to be picked. CVB Polimago is a module of Stemmer Imaging’s Common Vision Blox hardware-independent machine vision library. It is differentiated from other pattern matching methods by generating artificial views of the model during the training phase to simulate various positions of a component in real life.

In the other applications highlighted, LMI Gocator 3D profile sensors will be employed in a conveyor belt demonstration where various 3D components of parts will be measured and a pass/fail decision made. The Gocator is a self-contained 3D profile sensor, which uses an integral laser line projector to build a series of 3D profiles of an object moving underneath it. A comprehensive set of built in 3D measurement tools allow a wide range of measurements to be made without the need for an external computer.

A multi-camera packaging inspection system will be used to determine print quality, read alphanumeric and barcode data and check fill-level as boxes pass underneath. Using cameras from JAI, Allied Vision and Teledyne DALSA, this will show how cameras with different interfaces (USB3 Vision and GigE Vision) and varying resolutions can be combined to meet different inspection needs.

Teledyne DALSA´s new 5 megapixel Boa 2 smart camera will be shown inspecting pharmaceutical packaging. With inspections up to 80 parts/second, enhanced embedded measurement and processing software, and a variety of I/O and mounting options, the versatile Boa 2 can automate identification, measurement, guiding and verification requirements in a host of applications.

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Previous page MACH 2016 exhibition preview

Featuring a lightweight, ultra compact body, the Gocator 3109 measures just 49x100x155mm and weighs less than 1.5kg, which Stemmer Imaging says gives it the smallest footprint of any blue LED projection scanner on the market. This ultra compact design and lightweight package make the Gocator 3109 easy to mount onto robotic arms, or fit single or multiple sensors into confined spaces (for example for measuring engine cylinders), and integrate or embed into machines and other factory devices.

The Gocator 3109 uses a blue LED structured light module and stereo scanning technology to generate high-resolution, full-field scans with fast scan cycles at up to 5Hz. The blue LED produces high-contrast patterns that deliver high-resolution scanning with excellent ambient light immunity, even in challenging conditions.

The wide field of view (86x67mm to 88x93mm) and flexible scanning capability provide measurement of multiple features such as fasteners, holes, slots, studs, and panel gap and flush with a single 3D snapshot. This lowers system costs, because users are able to inspect a large number of features in a shorter period of time and with a minimum number of scanners. Area scanning also removes the need to perfectly align the sensors before part features can be accurately detected.

The Gocator 3109 communicates directly with PLCs and robots, resulting in fewer hardware components and fewer configuration details for setup and maintenance. By eliminating the need for PCs and minimising the number of components required, system design is optimized and integration costs reduced. The sensor is factory pre-calibrated for ‘out-of-the-box’ use.

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The new event is even bigger than the highly successful first UK forum held in 2014. It features 50 seminars split over six parallel tracks and, as before, will focus on learning rather than product presentations. Organised in conjunction with the European Imaging Academy, these tracks cover all aspects of machine vision technology with sessions suitable for both newcomers and experienced users. There will also be six extended hands-on sessions covering 3D imaging and the creation of machine vision applications using either smart cameras or multi-camera imaging software.

Mark Williamson, director for corporate market development at Stemmer Imaging, said: “It is a format that works really well, with visitors being able to choose to attend just the talks that are of most interest to them. The hands-on sessions are highly popular and we would advise early registration to secure a place for these.”

Running alongside the seminar program will be a mini trade show with 32 exhibitors, which will showcase some of the latest machine vision technology available. Attendees can visit this exhibition at their leisure during refreshment breaks or any time during the day when they are not in a seminar.

“In 2014 we had over 350 attendees, who not only benefited from the talks themselves, but also from the opportunity to network with many leading industry experts including integrators,” continued Williamson. “By bringing together this unique blend of vendors, developers and users, we are creating the largest dedicated industrial vision event for the UK.”

The European Imaging Academy is delivering a series of presentations which will help newcomers to vision technology to not only see how machine vision can add value but also what is important when specifying and buying vision systems. More experienced and expert users will be able to hear from a host of industry experts about optimising their systems, new techniques, standards and emerging technologies.

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Mark Williamson, corporate market development manager at Stemmer Imaging, said: “Our first UK Technology Forum, which took place in 2014 proved to be extremely popular, attracting around 350 participants. It featured over 40 technical presentations held in five parallel sessions covering a comprehensive range of vision technologies, as well as hands-on workshops for 2D and 3D vision systems and a mini trade show with over 30 exhibitors.

“It is a format that works really well, with visitors being able to choose to attend just the talks that are of most interest to them as well as being able to stroll round the exhibition during the lunchtime period or if they have a gap between their chosen seminars,” he continued. “We are already busy planning the technical sessions for the 2016 event.”

Full details of the technical sessions together with registration details will be posted on the Stemmer Imaging forum website page, as soon as the program has been finalised.

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The new geometric part location technology provides flexible and robust contour-based 2D pattern matching to locate parts and features regardless of their scale or orientation, for applications where parts to be measured arrive at the camera in random orientations (for example on a production line). A master part is simply registered as a golden template and parts arriving in any orientation are automatically re-aligned then inspected, resulting in significantly increased measurement accuracy, product quality and productivity. This avoids the need for either mechanical realignment or the use of additional specialised image processing on an external PC. It can also be used to differentiate highly similar parts or match one of many part models.

The new Profile Mode extends the capability of the Gocator point sensor to generate and inspect profiles of scanned parts in the same way a line profile sensor is able to build a 2D image. This provides a cost-effective alternative to the typical displacement sensor that requires heavy network bandwidth and a PC or external controller to operate. Profile Mode builds 3D part profiles by intelligently combining high speed range data into a profile of the scanned part with flexible part detection logic that supports a range of acquisition methods such as fixed length of movement, digital input control status and height thresholding.

Users can also access profile tools used on the Gocator 2 line profile series for measuring dimensions and inspecting features such as groove, gap, flush and strips. This gives greatly increased control over the inspection process and a significant reduction in system complexity and setup cost.

The new Gocator emulator function in firmware 4.2 allows a standalone or dual-sensor Gocator system to be simulated on a PC. The browser-based emulator makes it easy and intuitive to replay recorded files and fine-tune scan measurements to optimise measurement settings for use in an actual sensor.

Firmware 4.2 users can also interface with LMI’s PC based Gocator SDK with new 2D software tools included, as well as aquire directly into the point and click Sherlock machine vision environment or CVB software development kit. This allows 2D data generated within Gocator or from an additional 2D camera to be used for 2D inspection in tandem with Gocator’s rich 3D point clouds to provide a more sophisticated and comprehensive inspection capability.

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