Machine Vision and Alignment

Camera View

The camera view is displayed in the Recipe Preview window in DMC. It is calibrated to match the coordinate system of positioning stages and galvo scanners. Because of that, machining trajectories match the view of the sample, where they will be machined.

DMC laser machining software supports several cameras. E.g. one camera for a general view of the area and one camera for a high-resolution view of small features.

The camera view can be calibrated to be coaxial to a laser beam or off-axis. In case the off-axis camera view is used, the sample can be delivered between laser and camera by a single mouse click.

The camera can be also used for manual and automatic alignment and finding focus distance.

Autofocus

DMC Machine Vision module has an Autofocus function for the camera(s) used in the system.

The focus position is found for a selected camera by moving the user-selected stage (by default Z-axis). Focus can be found by scanning the whole set range continuously or by small steps looking for focus improvement.

The autofocus function is especially useful when the camera to laser focus distance is calibrated. Then the user can find a laser focus point on the surface easily with just a single mouse click.

Alignment

Built-in DMC’s Machine Vision module provides alignment functionality for laser machining processes. There are several alignment modes:

• Manual, when machining trajectories are dragged to match sample view.
• Manual, when fiducials are selected in camera view by the operator.
• Simple, when Machine Vision finds the position of a user set image.
• Advanced, when Machine Vision searches for a set pattern e.g. cross, edge, etc.

Alignment can be done using from one to four alignment marks. After alignment, all recipe is rotated and translated automatically to match sample displacement error.

Camera Stitching

Built-in DMC’s Machine Vision module allows for easy camera view stitching. The user just has to define the area to see and DMC moves stages automatically to capture and combine all the images.