In machine vision systems, inspection of an object is done using a combination of sensor technologies such as a camera and an illumination source. The amount of information that can be extracted from a 2D camera is limited. The human vision system integrates information over time including depth.

To determine the orientation of an object or calculate it’s conformance to a specification automatically, it is necessary to include the third dimension for accuracy. This can be done by illuminating the object using a projection system. The use of projected images for this purpose is referred to as “structured lighting”.

Syntec Optics makes polymer optics components of the projection system used in such applications.