Easy calibration method of vision system for in-situ measurement of strain of thin films

Abstract

An easy calibration method was presented for in-situ measurement of displacement in the order of nanometer during micro-tensile test for thin films by using CCD camera as a sensing device. The calibration of the sensing camera in the system is a central element part to measure displacement in the order of nanometer using images taken with the camera. This was accomplished by modeling the optical projection through the camera lens and relative locations between the object and camera in 3D space. A set of known 3D points on a plane where the film is located on is projected to an image plane as input data. These points, known as a calibration points, are then used to estimate the projection parameters of the camera. In the measurement system of the micro-scale by CCD camera, the calibration data acquisition and one-to-one matching steps between the image and 3D planes need precise data extraction procedures and repetitive user's operation to calibrate the measuring devices. The lack of the robust image feature extraction and easy matching prevent the practical use of these methods. A data selection method was proposed to overcome these limitations and offer an easy and convenient calibration of a vision system that has the CCD camera and the 3D reference plane with calibration marks of circular type on the surface of the plane. The method minimizes the user's intervention such as the fine tuning of illumination system and provides an efficient calibration method of the vision system for in-situ axial displacement measurement of the micro-tensile materials.