Patent ID: 11875219
Assignee: COGNEX CORPORATION
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A non-transitory computer readable medium of program instructions operating on a vision system processor of an imaging system that acquires images of barcodes in a scene, performing the following steps:
acquiring coarse focus images for each of a plurality of coarse focus settings, the coarse focus settings corresponding to a range of allowable distances between the barcodes and the imaging system;
determining, via a barcode detector, barcode-like regions within the coarse focus images and estimate a respective likelihood that each of the barcode-like regions are indicative of actual barcodes, the barcode detector operating reliably in the presence of focus blur; and
for each of the barcode-like regions having a threshold likelihood, using a fine focus procedure to maximize a sharpness measurement around the respective barcode-like regions by acquiring images at adjusted focus settings that are near the coarse focus setting used to acquire the coarse focus image,
wherein maximizing the sharpness measurement via the fine focus procedure improves the focus to acquire an image that is sharp enough to successfully decode the barcodes at the respective barcode-like regions.