Israel-based smart visual inspection company Kitov.ai has significantly simplified the setup of robotic vision inspection systems with CAD2SCAN, a CAD-based automated inspection planning tool.
CAD2SCAN is the latest feature of the Kitov Smart Planner. By combining CAD2SCAN with Kitov’s smart visual inspection and Review Station, customers can automate inspection solutions that are too difficult and time-consuming to manually program and deploy.
“CAD2SCAN represents a leap forward in the planning of visual inspection, especially for parts with complex 3D geometry and intricate inspection requirements,” explains Dr. Yossi Rubner, founder and CTO of Kitov.ai. “Allowing quality managers to define their inspection requirements directly on the part CAD model, simply and intuitively, will save weeks or even months compared to defining such inspection manually. Our software automatically takes all available information from the CAD, including geometric and component specifications, and uses it for the planning of the robot inspection.”
Rubner adds, “The inspection plan is optimized in the sense that it fulfills the requirements, guarantees full coverage, reduces the number of images needed, minimizes the total inspection time, and calculates the best viewing and illumination angles for each specific feature of interest.” In addition, the planner captures multiple inspection points in a single image when possible, reducing the cycle time.
Semantic information extracted from the CAD is passed on to Kitov semantic detectors, which use the information for better inspection. For example, in surface inspection, information on material properties, such as surface reflectance, is used to determine the best illumination angles. Information on screw type and dimensions can enhance screw inspection. Other Kitov semantic detectors, such as labels, barcodes, and connectors, benefit from the relevant semantic information extracted from the CAD model.
Automatic CAD-based inspection planning is a game-changer for industries that manufacture complex parts and products. For example, CAD2SCAN technology improves the inspection of single-material parts with complex 3D geometric shapes, such as turbine engines, blades, wheels, and metal molding; CNC parts, where it is very hard and time-consuming to carry out full inspection manually; and custom-made or other low-volume parts (such as medical implants or 3D-printed parts), where it is extremely hard and not economical to automate inspection in any other way.
CAD2SCAN technology is implemented as a plugin to common CAD software systems (currently available for SolidWorks and Creo). It also supports the evolving QIF (quality information framework) ISO standard and can parse visual inspection requirements embedded into it.
