Materials and Manufacturing Processes

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An Approach to Improved CNC Machining Using

Vision-Based System

Ghassan Al-Kindi & Hussien Zughaer

To cite this article: Ghassan Al-Kindi & Hussien Zughaer (2012) An Approach to Improved CNC
Machining Using Vision-Based System, Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 27:7, 765-774,
DOI: 10.1080/10426914.2011.648249

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10426914.2011.648249

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Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 27: 765–774, 2012
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1042-6914 print=1532-2475 online
DOI: 10.1080/10426914.2011.648249

An Approach to Improved CNC Machining

Using Vision-Based System
Ghassan Al-Kindi1 and Hussien Zughaer2
1
Faculty of Engineering, Sohar University, Sohar, Sultanate of Oman
2
College of North Atlantic Qatar, Doha, Qatar

CNC machines are still suffering from machine blindness. They cannot automatically assess the performance of applied machined tasks.
In this article, an approach is made to improve the performance of CNC machining by utilizing on-line vision-based monitoring and control
system. To facilitate the integration of computer vision with CNC machines a system is proposed and developed to tackle a number of pin-
pointed issues that obstruct such integration. A practical executable methodology of these steps is developed to enable their beneficial
implementation on lab-scale CNC milling machines. Two different models of bench type CNC machines are employed to generalize the
findings. Two cameras are mounted on the machine spindle of each of the two employed CNC machines to provide valid image data accord-
ing to the cutting direction. Proper selection and activation of relative camera is achieved automatically by the developed system which ana-
lyze the most recent conducted tool path movement to decide on which camera is to be activated. In order to assess the machining surface
quality and cutting tool status, image data are processed to evaluate resulting tool imprints on the machined surface. An indicating para-
meter to assess resulting tool imprints is proposed and used. The overall results show the validity of the approach and encourage further
development to realize real industrial scale intelligent vision-controlled CNC machines.

Keywords Improved CNC machining; Intelligent machining; Surface roughness; Vision system.

INTRODUCTION Roughness measurement is frequently achieved

Although CNC machines are currently regarded as the
heart of machining workshops, parts produced on these
machines may not be as precise as expected. CNC
machines cannot automatically monitor and judge the
effectiveness of the applied machining parameters (i.e.,
cutting speed, feed rate, and depth of cut), tool wear,
and life status while machining, and the resulting accu-
racy and quality of machined surfaces. Providing CNC
machines with abilities to monitor and assess the conduc-
tion of such tasks will open the way to introduce
additional feedback control to these machines, hence
improving their machining performance [1]. Surface
roughness measurement is one crucial parameter that
affects the preciseness of manufactured parts [2]. There-
fore, surface roughness could be used to decide on the
quality of machining and tool condition.
Several studies on optimizing the cutting parameters
to produce best surface roughness have been conducted
[3–6]. Although positive results are demonstrated in these
studies to obtain best possible finish for a given tool
shape and feed, satisfactorily implementation of these
studies can only be attempted if built-up edge, chatter,
inaccuracies in machine-tool movement, etc., are elimi-
nated [7], which is extremely difficult to avoid in real
applications.
Received November 13, 2011; Accepted November 15, 2011
Address correspondence to Ghassan Al-Kindi, Faculty of Engin-
eering, Sohar University, P.O. Box 44, PC-311, Sohar, Sultanate of
Oman; E-mail: gkindi@soharuni.edu.om
by stylus-based equipment; however, using such tech-
nique to acquire on-line roughness measurement, while
machining is not possible due to the induced machine
vibration and practical equipment setup. Recently
vision-based roughness measurement has started to
gain attention in acquiring real-life data [8, 9]. If such
techniques are introduced in CNC machines, it would
enhance their performance and functionality by deciding
whether to keep or alter the employed machining
parameters, adjust the machining path, or to apply tool
change.
In order to introduce vision-based roughness measure-
ment technique to CNC machines, a number of scientific
as well as technical issues needs to be investigated and
handled including scene visibility issues (e.g., camera
mounting, camera field of view, camera-optics cali-
bration, mapping of world coordinates to image coordi-
nates, image acquisition of relevant view to meet the
machining path, effects of coolant on the image quality,
effects of cut chips blocking the scene, lighting, and
workpiece color variation and reflection characteristics),
effects of machine vibration on the quality of obtained
roughness measurement, selection of a suitable rough-
ness parameter to be employed in the analysis of vision
data, and effect of machining parameters on acquired
vision based roughness measurements.
The pioneer research to integrate CNC machines
with vision systems is presented in [1] though only
limited success was gained at that time due to hardware
limitation. Several attempts were made later on to
gain on-line assessment of machining tools [10–14].

765
766 G. AL-KINDI AND H. ZUGHAER

However, conducted literature review has assured the

following:

1. No comprehensive study yet available that shows the

complete relationship among the machining para-
meters with obtained roughness measurements using
vision-based technique.
2. Currently, vision controlled CNC machines are not
offered as commercial products.
3. To date, CNC machines still suffer from machine
blindness.
4. Vision-based techniques have started to gain research
popularity in roughness measurement application.

SYSTEM HARDWARE
In this research, two separate experimental CNC-
vision rigs are established using two different models of
CNC machines. These two different hardware setups
aim at facilitating the generalization of the developed
model to be applied to other models and types of CNC
machines. In the first rig, a Denford ‘‘Novamill’’ CNC
milling machine is employed, whereas in the second rig,
an Intelitek type ‘‘Super-Pro-light 1000’’ CNC milling
machine is used. Both machines can be characterized as
bench-type with PC-driven Fanuc-controller emulated
machines. In order to introduce vision system to these
two rigs, two high resolution Logitech C-910 cameras,
which provide images of 24-bit with real resolution of
2,592
1,944 pixels, are used to acquire valid machined
surface data and avoid blocking the scene of the
machined surface by the tool or tool movement. These
four cameras are mounted on the two machine spindles
to provide plan view of the machined part. Ambient
lighting is used to minimize the effects of specular light
reflection from the metallic work parts that are machined
[15]. Figures 1 and 2 show photographs of the developed
rigs on CNC machines at work.
FIGURE 2.—Hardware setup utilizing the ‘‘Super-Prolight1000’’ CNC
milling machine.
THE MACHINING TASK
High speed steel (HSS) end milling cutters of U 10 mm
are used for the experiments. Square size workpieces
made of commercial aluminium are used, and their sur-
faces are machined using varying machining parameters.
Depth of cut in the range of 1–3 mm, feed rate of
50 mm=min up to 300 mm=min, and speed of cut of
1,000 rpm are used in the investigation. More than 60
specimens were actually machined using varying values
of machining parameters from the above ranges to
enable the assessment of their surface finish. In order to
facilitate a comparison base for roughness measurement
using vision system, surface roughness of these machined
specimens are measured using SE1200 Kosaka-Lab
stylus-based profile-meter; see Fig. 3.

FIGURE 1.—Hardware setup utilizing the ‘‘Novamill’’ CNC milling FIGURE 3.—SE1200 stylus-based roughness profile-meter, machined
machine. specimens, and sample of acquired roughness parameter results.
IMPROVED CNC MACHINING USING VISION-BASED SYSTEM 767

Seventeen different standard surface roughness TABLE 1.—Example of resulting surface roughness for a set machined
parameters are computed for each specimen. These specimens. (Speed of cut is set to 1,000 rpm.)
include Ra, Rz, Rp, Rv, Rq, RSm, Rmr, Rt, Rsk, Rku, Rk, Sample Feed rate Depth of Surface roughness Surface roughness
Rpk, Rvk, Mr1, Mr2, A1, and A2 [8]. Figure 4 shows exam- no. mm=min cut mm Ra mm Rt mm
ples of computed values of some of these parameters.
Analyses of acquired results of these different rough- 1 50 2 3.145 18.932
2 100 2 1.719 8.810
ness parameters show that it is not always possible to
3 150 2 3.301 16.896
predict the resulting surface roughness parameters, even 4 200 2 3.581 22.680
if only one machining variable is varied while all other 5 250 2 5.132 22.340
machining variables are kept constant. Hence, based 6 300 2 6.045 30.184
on the acquired results, none of the employed surface 7 50 3 3,132 17.344
roughness parameters could be used with confidence in 8 100 mm=min 3 2.106 12.976
this research to develop a reliable model that predicts 9 150 mm=min 3 1.700 13.978
and evaluates the performance of machining parameters. 10 200 3 3.125 17.534
For instance, it is evident from Table 1, which includes 11 250 3 3.111 19.434
examples of acquired measurements, that although all 12 300 3 4.012 19.563
machining parameters are kept constant apart from feed
rate, the resulting amplitude parameters of stylus-based Nevertheless, if such novel surface roughness indica-
surface roughness do not always provide consistent tors are introduced, they are not meant to replace the
values that can be directly related to the feed rate used. widely used and well-known roughness parameters such
Therefore, there is a real need to introduce alternative as Ra, but they will provide beneficial advantage to allow
surface roughness indicators that could provide direct the evaluation of the performance of the cutting con-
and consistent relationship between resulting surface ditions in conjunction with the currently used roughness
qualities and employed machining parameters. parameters.
It should be noted that surface roughness resulting
from machining operations have features that influence
both micro- and nanoscale regions [16], as shown in
Fig. 5. While both micro- and nano-features are of high
importance in engineering applications, the microscale
region usually results from the tool cutting edge imprint
on the workpiece surface, and hence the on-line monitor-
ing of this roughness scale region will provide advan-
tageous judgement on the cutting tool condition and life.
In face milling operation, tool imprints on the
machined surface are mainly influenced by feed per tooth.
In other words, the tool imprints on the machined surface

FIGURE 4.—Example of computed roughness parameters for a set of

machined specimens. FIGURE 5.—Micro- vs. nanoscale roughness.
768 G. AL-KINDI AND H. ZUGHAER

are affected by the cutting speed, the tool diameter, the

number of cutting teeth in the tool, the feed rate used,
and the cutting path overlapping (if any). Theoretically,
tool movement on the main axis of the cutting direction
is expected to generate tool imprints rate of It
(imprints=mm):

60
V
ln
It ¼ ; ð1Þ
p
d
f

where V is the tangential cutting speed (mm=sec), tn is the

number of cutting teeth in the tool, d is the tool diameter
(mm), and f is the cutting feed rate (mm=min).
It is worth stating that in face milling each tool tooth
intersects the axis of the tool movement twice in each
single rotation. Hence, this may alter the resulting pat- FIGURE 6.—The proposed system concept.
tern of the tool imprints on the machined surface if
the second interception takes place in a deviated position
from the already imprinted cuts. However, from a theor- c. A dedicated computer that acts as the main server-
etical point of view, the added imprints will generate controller which is networked with the other two
similar frequency of imprints, though with certain value computers to facilitate on-line data exchange, feed-
of phase shift. Such phase shift Ps (mm), if occurred, can back, and decision making
be estimated by


 Figure 7 provides a flowchart of the CNC machining
f
It f
It vision system. The input to the system main computer is
Ps ¼  int ; ð2Þ
d d

where int(x) is the integer value of x.

The monitoring of the resulting frequency of tool
imprints on the machined surface provides a beneficial
indication on the status of the tool condition, tool life,
and correspondingly microscale surface roughness. For
instance, if one of the tool teeth (or more) has broken
or worn out, the resulting pattern of tool imprint on the
machined surface is altered and, therefore, could be recog-
nized if valid procedure for on-line monitoring of such
tool imprint is developed and applied. However, in prac-
tical applications, there are many other factors that affect
the resulting pattern of tool imprints on the machined sur-
face. The important factors are built-up edge, chip trap in
the tool=workpiece interface, chatter, inaccuracies in
machine-tool movement, micro-irregularities of tool cut-
ting edges, and other reasons related to metal shear beha-
vior. All of these factors present a challenge to any
developed model that aims at the automatically monitor-
ing and controling the resulting tool imprints.

CNC-VISION INTEGRATION
In general, CNC machine controllers do not provide
open platform to develop supervisory control programs
by users [17], and hence in order to facilitate the
execution of this research a detailed technical design is
proposed and employed to enable the integration of
the vision system with employed CNC machine. The
proposed system design utilizes the use of three compu-
ters as follows (Fig. 6):

a. A dedicated computer to control the CNC machine

b. A dedicated computer to control the vision system FIGURE 7.—Flowchart of the CNC machining vision system.
IMPROVED CNC MACHINING USING VISION-BASED SYSTEM
a normal G-code program that defines the required tool
path, selected machining parameters, as well as other
miscellaneous functions.
A dedicated program is developed by the authors to
enable data processing and system implementation. The
main computer is used to execute the developed program.
The program analyzes and processes the input G-codes
in order to automatically segment the tool path and out-
put a set of regenerated G-codes, thus allowing the
implementation of on-line monitoring and control. Each
block of the regenerated G-codes facilitates the move-
ment of one single-segmented tool path movement of a
predefined linear (or circular) length, where such move-
ment is extracted from the originally programmed tool
path. However, the execution of the newly generated
G-code program ensures the exactl same tool path,
machining parameters, and miscellaneous functions,
though it includes subroutine call functions and other
control functions, as will be discussed later. The regener-
ated G-codes are then stored in the common storage to
enable their loading and execution by the CNC control-
ler. Once the CNC controller starts to execute the newly
generated G-code program, it will sequentially load and
execute certain attached G-code subroutines that are also
automatically created and attached to the main G-code
program. These G-code subroutines include the spindle
speed and feed rate, as well as other added control codes;
hence, the values of cutting speed and feed rate can be
replaced by other decided values without the interruption
of the execution of the main G-code program. The
instantaneous updating of either=both speed of cut
or=and feed rate values is achieved by replacing relative
G-code subroutine by a new version which includes the
new values of these machining parameters instead of
the current values used. The new values of machining
parameters are decided according to an automatic
decision-making action based on intelligent surface
roughness feedback gained via the vision system.
In order to overcome the problem of coolant and pro-
duced chips obstructing the visual scene of the vision
system, compressed air is used instead of liquid coolant.
Activation and deactivation of compressed air is con-
trolled via a solenoid valve that acquires its activation
signal via the main G-code program. The compressed
air, in this case, will also serve to remove the cut chips
away from the camera field of view; however, to achieve
this task, sequential control steps are used in the main
G-code program described below:
a. Activate the air coolant by generating relative output
signal to the solenoid; for the Intelitek CNC machine,
we used the code (M25 H11) to set the signal to high
level at the output channel H11, which turn the com-
pressed air flow to on status and the code (M26 H11)
to set the output signal to low level hence turn the
compressed air flow to off status.
b. Execute one segmented movement of the machining
path; a value of 10 mm is used in the conducted
experiments of this research, and the generated
G-codes, therefore, include execution blocks to
769
enable movements of 10 mm at a time. However,
other values can also be selected to segment the tool
path, though resulting tool path segments should
be longer than the usual tracing length used in the
evaluation of tool imprints or surface roughness.
c. Wait for a defined short duration while compressed
air is still on using G04 (Dwell cycle); in the practical
tests, we set the time for this task to two seconds and
gained successful results. Once this step is executed
and the air blast solenoid is turned to off status,
the vision system starts to acquire the image; the
activation of the vision system is also done via an
external trigger signal gained from another output
channel of the CNC machine controller, whereas
camera selection is achieved by the extraction of cut-
ting direction from the most recent executed block of
the segmented G-code program.
d. Apply image-processing procedure to relevant surface
image data. This stage involves intelligent identifi-
cation of relevant region of interest to extract image
data for processing. Once the image data is processed,
new values of machining parameters are decided
according to an automatic decision making pro-
cedure. These new machining parameters are typed
to relative G-code subroutine. It should be noted that
the image region of interest aims to monitor the cut-
ting tool performance just as the tool completes the
cutting of the most recent tool path segment; hence,
if no cutting is conducted within this tool path seg-
ment, e.g., the cutting tool is approaching the work-
piece, then there is no need to acquire and process
relevant image data or update the machining para-
meter values.
e. The CNC machine waits for another signal input
which is sent by the vision system to acknowledge
that the image processing for this step is completed,
and the new G-code subroutine becomes ready to
be loaded and executed.
f. Load and execute the newly generated G-code sub-
routine by the CNC controller; thus, the new values
of machining parameters are applied.
g. Repeat step (a) above, and continue executing the
next segmented movement of the tool path.
The above steps were tested successfully on the two
developed rigs; however, we made some alterations to
suit each of the two CNC machine controllers. For
instance, the Novamill CNC controller allow the use of
subroutine call from outside its environment; therefore,
the developed method works fine, whereas the
Super-Prolight CNC machine controller does not allow
this task. Hence, in order to overcome this limitation,
we used ‘‘chain to program’’ code (G20) instead of sub-
routine call. It should be noted here that the chain to pro-
gram G20 does not provide a way to come back to the
main G-code program, and hence the regeneration of
the G-code program, which is achieved at the first stage,
was altered to generate and chain the newly generated
G-code programs instead of using subroutine call func-
tion. Figure 8 presents an example of a simple G-code
770 G. AL-KINDI AND H. ZUGHAER

FIGURE 8.—Example of an input and output G-code programs (color

figure available online).

program for the Super-Prolight CNC machine and the

automatically generated output G-code subroutines
from the system to run on the CNC machine controller.

VISION DATA PROCESSING AND TOOL IMPRINT ASSESSMENT

Roughness measurement using vision data is not a
straightforward task. It requires a lot of attention and
development of a methodology that works in a reliable
way to provide on-line and semi-real-time results.
Although many published articles assure that vision data
provide valid information regarding surface roughness,
e.g., references [8, 9], this task requires further investigation
to suit the environment of each of the two developed
CNC-vision systems and ultimately the general case.
Experimental investigation is carried out by the
authors of this article to analyze the images of the sixty
machined specimens. Eight images of each specimen are
acquired and processed to extract relative roughness
data. Figure 9 provides examples of acquired images
from the machined specimens’ surfaces for several sam-
ples, whereas Fig. 10 gives examples of pixel intensities
across single lines of Fig. 9 images. It could be noted
from Fig. 10 that although roughness information is
inherited by vision data, the image data should undergo
several processing to extract reliable roughness measure-
ment from them.
One processing stage should be dedicated to remove
localized lighting (reflection) variation from these
images, a process which could be seen as an equivalent
(but not identical) to the separation of waviness from
roughness when employing stylus-based data.
FIGURE 9.—Examples of acquired images of several machined specimens.
In this research, we have developed a technique that aims
to overcome problem areas associated with acquiring a
measure of surface roughness assessment using vision data.
The technique is designed to face the problems asso-
ciated with irregular light reflection and color variation
of metal work parts. The technique consists of the
following steps:
Step 1: Compute ‘‘reference surface’’ (h) to act as a
base in the assessment of surface roughness; we have
proposed a modified version of the moving average
principle to suit the developed system. The proposed
technique is as follows:
a. If g is an array of image data with the size of I points
(pixels) that represents a line across the surface, the
reference surface h is defined as:
hðtÞ ¼ gðtÞ for t ¼ 1 to j
IMPROVED CNC MACHINING USING VISION-BASED SYSTEM 771

d. Repeat process (a) above for n number of times,

where n is the constant of the applied calculation
limit which depends on the image quality and could
be set to a selected value in the range of 0.15 to 0.5
of the I number of points; we have used the value
of n ¼ 0.16 in the conducted experiments; however,
we have also successfully tested other values within
the specified range.

Step 2: Use the computed h to filter out the original

line array of the image data, namely, g as follows:

gðiÞ ¼ gðiÞ  hðiÞ þ minðhÞ for i ¼ 1 to I;

where min(h) is the minimum value of the elements in

the h array.
Step 3: Calculate the mean line M of the resulting 
g as
follows:
Pi¼1
i¼1 gðiÞ
M¼ : ð3Þ
I
Step 4: Calculate required surface roughness indicator
or measure; in this research, we have proposed and
implemented an indicator of surface roughness based
on counting tool imprints on the machined surface
according to the following procedure:

a. Set the value of Zero as an initial value to the tool

imprints counter C.
b. Calculate the value of standard deviation r of the
elements in the g array.
c. Starting from the first element of resulting array  g,
identify regions of neighboring elements with values
of less than M, and record their values as subsets.
d. Test the elements of each subset, and increment C by
1 if at least one element in each subset has a value
that is less than (M  r); this condition is meant to
filter out intensity variations due to any unfiltered
noise.
FIGURE 10.—Examples of unprocessed image data of lines across several
machined specimens.
In order to verify the validity of the proposed tech-
nique of reference surface calculation, the developed
procedure is applied to a total of 480 images acquired
for the 60 machined specimens. Satisfactory results are
hðiÞ ¼ gðiÞ for i ¼ 1  j þ 1 to j gained for all cases. Figures 11 and 12 show a represen-
tative example of a set of acquired results which
Pm¼ðiþjÞ demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed pro-
m¼ðijÞ gðmÞ cedure. It is clear from these figures that resulting
hðiÞ  for i  i þ j to I  j; reference surface was successfully gained from the
2j þ 1
vision-based roughness profile, despite the several
where (2j þ 1) is the length of the local average sub- problem areas affecting the image data.
array which is set to a suitable odd number value; The proposed tool imprint indicating parameter C is
this parameter is set to the value of 5 in the conduc- also computed to verify its capability to handle the
ted experiments and provides excellent results. different cases provided by the acquired 480 images.
b. Set Results are generally positive; however, further attenu-
ation of the proposed model is required for more robust-
ness. Table 2 shows a representative example of acquired
gðiÞ ¼ hðiÞ for i ¼ 1 to I: results, where it can be seen that the developed model
772 G. AL-KINDI AND H. ZUGHAER

FIGURE 12.—Examples of processed and filtered image data of lines across

a set of specimens. (Depth of cut 2 mm and speed of cut 1,000 rpm).

TABLE 2.—Some examples of computed tool imprint indicating parameter

C. (Speed of cut is 1,000 rpm and depth of cut is 2 mm.)

Resulting C value

Feed rate Max deviation

mm=min Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Average from mean %

50 31 33 27 28 29.75 %10.9
100 32 25 25 26 27 %18.5
150 23 20 24 26 23.25 %14
200 18 16 17 22 18.25 %20.5
250 16 15 16 19 16.5 %15.2
300 12 12 15 13 13 %15.4

FIGURE 11.—Examples of resulting reference surface for image lines across

a set of specimens.

THE NEXT STEP: MOVING FORWARD

has successfully provided consistent indicating values of
the tool imprints on the machined surface, except for few
cases. This is mostly related to the lag in image resol-
ution and quality.
Although positive and promising results are obtained
from the developed vision-roughness model, more inves-
tigation and attenuation is required to enable reliable
implementation of the developed methodology in real
applications. Such task has been set as the next target
IMPROVED CNC MACHINING USING VISION-BASED SYSTEM
for this research team, where a large number of
additional experiments are planned to be executed to
generalize the findings.
Once a reliable model is achieved, on-line processing
of vision data while machining will be conducted using
the developed CNC-vision system.
The developed CNC-vision system at the current stage
handles both linear and circular interpolated movements
in x and y directions. However, the system capability
could be expanded to enable the handling of three axes
movements; monitoring of the movement in z direction
will require adding four additional cameras for each
rig, therefore, monitoring and processing of images
acquired from six cameras to achieve real-time control
need higher computer processing speeds; hence, such
task is planned for future work.
Nevertheless, several other alternative future direc-
tions are also planned to expand the findings of this
research. One of these directions is towards system
expansion to accommodate other machining tasks
within the system, except those which do not allow clear
image acquisition, e.g., drilling of small holes and taping
of small threads.
In addition, a goal is also set to investigate the system
feasibility if applied to industrial type CNC machines. A
preliminary plan on how to achieve this goal is set by the
authors of this article; however, it needs to be tested and
proved.
CONCLUSIONS
In this work, considerable progress is achieved
towards the challenging realization of intelligent vision-
controlled CNC machines. The proposed framework
and the developed system show satisfactory results.
The technical problems associated with visibility of the
workpiece scene are handled successfully through the
designed and developed procedures. These procedures
showed superb results in overcoming effects of coolant
blocking the image scene, discarding cut chip from the
image scene, and also reducing vibration effects on the
acquired images.
The developed methodology of tool path segmen-
tation to allow on-line monitoring and control of
machining performance through adjusting or altering
the machining parameters has showed to be very effec-
tive and provides the means to apply vision-based feed-
back control to CNC machines to overcome limitations
associated with CNC machine controllers which in
general do not provide open platform to develop super-
visory control programs.
The use of two cameras in the system hardware
together with the developed procedure to activate rel-
evant camera has enabled valid image data acquisition
of the most recent cut of tool path segment.
Results showed that employing any of the standard
surface roughness parameters in on-line assessment
using vision system does not always provide reliable
and consistent indicating values. Hence, there is a real
need to propose and develop alternative procedures to
773
enable on-line in-situ assessment of machined surfaces
to enable the integration of such developed techniques
with CNC machines.
The developed technique to calculate reference surface
for machined surfaces using image data showed excellent
results and overcoming the problem areas associated
with irregular light reflection and color variation of metal
work parts. Hence, the authors strongly recommend
employing of this technique in surface roughness
evaluation using vision data.
The proposed tool imprint indicator C has showed to
provide valid consistent indicating values that can be
directly related to machining parameters employed.
However, more investigation and development of this
parameter is needed for more robustness. In addition,
further investigation of the use of this proposed indi-
cator to assess tool condition is also required.
The outcome results gained from the practical execution
of this research project encourage further investigation
and development to beneficially realize the challenging
aim of the development of intelligent computer vision con-
trolled CNC machines. Further steps are already planed
and under development by this research team to achieve
more robust and reliable system that can be readily
adopted and applied to industrial CNC machines.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The results presented in this article are part of an
on-going research project funded by Qatar National
Research Fund QNRF (project number NPRP Number:
08-287-2-096 with a total values of US$ 396,900.00).
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