Patent ID: 6980692
Filing Date: 2005-12-27
Classification: G06K,G06T,G11B

Abstract:
1. An imaging picker system for use in aligning a tape cartridge accessor with cartridges in cells of a tape cartridge magazine, comprising: a picker assembly; an imager disposed on the picker assembly; illumination sources disposed on the picker assembly; and a processor, coupled to the imager and illumination sources, for processing image data obtained from the imager and for controlling the illumination sources; wherein the processor applies dynamic image thresholding to the image to select an optimum gray scale level of the image, the image expected to include a desired physical feature and wherein the processor performs dynamic image thresholding by identifying a region of interest around the area where the desired physical feature is expected to be, thresholding the portion of the image within the region of interest with an experimental gray scale value, calculating the ratio of black pixels to the total number of pixels, and using a search method based on a histogram of the ratio across the threshold spectrum to actively search for the threshold value that produces a closest match to the target ratio value.