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SPIE Defense and Security 2011 review
Just short of 6,400 attendees were in the final count on Thursday, with numbers particularly strong for exhibition visitors and technical attendees this year. The exhibition continued active untill the close of business in early afternoon, with companies already making plans to attend next year.
Quest Innovations attended this exhibition and was present at the Alternative Vision booth. The exhibition was very successful and we would like to thank all the visitors for their visit. At SPIE Defence, Security & Sensing Quest displayed a Condor-1000 MS5-VNN-285 multispectral camera which uses a total of five sensors to capture the visible Red, Green and Blue regions together with two special NIR bands.
The 2012 event will move from Orlando to the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland and will be held from the 23rd until the 27th of April. Primary goals for the move are to improve the potential for growth, as the current site is nearly maxed out, and to move the timing away from the spring holidays and school breaks. We hope to meet you again next year.
Application: Measuring NDVI with multispectral cameras
Multispectral imaging is an important technology for remote sensing in aerial applications. The data from NASA's Landsat satelite family have resulted in both a lot of academic research as well as numerous practical applications. Global vegetation monitoring has been greatly influenced by these satelites and their multispectral sensors that captured wavelengths from around 500 to 1000nm.
The Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a method to segment regions of vegetation in an aerial images. The key notion of this index is the fact that vegetation responds in a unique way to light of different wavelengths. The green color of foliage is caused by a pigment called chlorophyll, which is also responsible for the photosynthesis process that transforms CO2 to O2. There are several types of chlorophyll, each with a slightly different absorbance response.
Chlorophylls have high absorbance in blue and red regions, but low in the green and infrared. These differences in absorbance (and thus also in reflection) can be exploited to measure the amount of vegetation in an area.
Quest can provide multiple cameras with similar wavelengths as the multispectral sensors of NASA's Landsat satelite. More information on this subject can be found on our website.
APC uses 8 cameras for high resolution measurements
 In conjunction with HGG and EyeRa, Quest Innovations has developed the world's first integrated multi-camera vision application for a 3D robotic profiling machine.
After a period of internal usage, this newly developed top-of-the-line profiling machine APC (All Profile Cutter) has now been released for customers. The APC was developed in-house and HGG thoroughly tested its speed, user-friendliness and functionality within its own cutting service centres. The system is developed to be able to process with high precision a wide variety of tubes and beams. The Kjellberg High Definition Plasma system, combined with a Staubli robot can rotate 360 degrees around the material providing an unparalleled cutting result.
Using a integrated vision system, a combination of 4 lasers and 8 digital cameras developed by Quest Innovations, the APC is able to quickly measure a wide variety of material shapes with an accuracy of 0.1 mm. The system perceives and consequently displays discrepancies of the material. These deviations are in turn related to the theoretical dimensions whereupon the robot automatically compensates the alterations in the cutting process.
Beams and tubes are practically always subject to deformation, unstraight flanges, an off-centre body or a deviating radius at the corners of hollow sections render the cutting process a difficult procedure. The new vision measuring system in the APC is the ideal solution to achieve a perfect cut and provides another step towards a fully automated proces.
Upcoming events
- Health & Technology, 14-15 September 2011, Arnhem, The Netherlands
- SPIE Security + Defence 2011, 19-22 September, Prague, Czech Republic
- VISION 2011, 8-10 November 2011, Stuttgart, Germany
- AIA Buisiness Conference, 18-20 January 2012, Orlando, Florida, USA
- SPIE PHotonics West, 21 - 26 January 2012, San Francisco, California, USA
- SPIE Defense, Security & Sensing, 23 - 27 April 2012, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- The Vision Show, 8-10 May 2012, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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