Innovative laser processing concepts for small batch assembly
The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology is located at the campus of the RWTH Aachen and is one of Germanys leading research institutes for new laser processes, tailor-made laser beam sources and special laser systems. During my time as student research assistant at the Fraunhofer ILT I participated in the INTAKT project, an innovative laser processing concept for small batch assembly. This video shows the final result of this project.
The INTAKT software was developed in collaboration with the The Institute of Imaging & Computer Vision at RWTH Aachen. The setup process is done for a single work piece located on the carrier plate. The user defines simple geometric forms on the image of the work piece that can later be detected during the automated laser welding process. My task was to design and develop the "Data Loader Module", an interactive 2D-to-3D CAD-matching module that later was integrated into the INTAKT software application.
Interactive 2D-3D CAD-matching and extraction application.
The interactive 2D-to-3D CAD-matching module was designed to allow the import of welding contours defined in the CAD model of a given work piece into the INTAKT software application during the setup process. This allows the definition of welding contours during the construction phase of the work piece. The presentation of the CAD model was achieved by integrating the Rhino3D software directly into the user interface of the module using Windows API calls, while the communication with Rhino3D was handled via OLE-COM automation.
During the matching process, the user manually matches features (lines, circles, ellipses) detected on the image of the current work piece to their equivalent within the CAD model in order to calculate a transformation of the local 3D model space to the image space of the camera. This transformation then can be used to extract a welding contours from the CAD model and map it into the image space of the work piece for the welding process. This presentation (in German) shows an overview of the implementation. This is the final version of the CAD Matching Module:
