Label inspection system and method

摘要

A label inspection system fixture (1) has a scanner and housing (10) for performing full inline or offline inspection within a printer (20). The fixture (1) comprises a control circuit (5) with a processor within a curved guide plate (6). The scanner (10) communicates with the circuit (5), which in turn communicates with a host computer (VPU). The VPU identifies regions in a scanned label and applies to each region an inspection tool associated with that region. At least some of said tools include a stored training image and associated test data defining said regions and inspection criteria for the regions.

主权项

1. A label inspection system comprising:
a label scanner and a scanner controller, and a processor configured to analyze scanned images with inspection tools and determine a quality control output, the processor being configured to identify regions in a scanned label and to perform inspection associated with each region, and at least some of said tools including a stored training image and associated test data defining said regions and inspection criteria for the regions, the scanner being mounted in a housing of a fixture arranged to be incorporated into or onto a printer to receive a feed of labels driven by the printer without need for a drive dedicated to the inspection, and the scanner controller being configured to cause image acquisition in real time in a manner which is synchronized with speed of the printer label movement, and the processor being configured to generate and store an inspection configuration for each type of label, with an inspection definition per label region and a reference image; and wherein the inspection configuration contains inspection definitions in layers with containers holding inspection definitions to be applied at that layer, and wherein the reference label includes a format label, a product label, and a batch label, and wherein the format label defines the label structure including:
variable placeholders including an image placeholder, a text string placeholder, a code placeholder, a line, a box or a circle, andlocation and dimensions for each placeholder, wherein the product label is a specialization of the format label and includes a set of product level placeholders for data known at label design time, and wherein the batch label is a specialization of the product label in which batch level variable data is captured as a set of variable batch data which is not known until print time, and said batch label is configured to capture batch data including serialization descriptors as individual label identifiers, and wherein the inspection definitions define type of inspection and the location and dimension of the inspection definition specifies the region of the reference image to which the inspection definition applies.