A Vision System for Rock Surface Using Ultrasonic Range Finder and Image Processing

This paper deals with a simple vision system using an ultrasonic range finder and image processing. First, the image of the rock surface was taken by only one video camera. Then, the three dimensional shape measuring of rock surface was carried out by using the ultrasonic range finder.in this case, the scanning was conducted along only two lines, that is horizontal and vertical line of rocks. Therefore, the scanning period was much reduced compared to the previous method; the images were processed by image processor. Digital images consisted of 256x256 pixels with gray levels for each pixel.by using the measuring data from ultrasonic range finder and pixel value profiles along the horizontal and vertical lines, the shape of rock surface was estimated in a short time.