Patent Document ID: 20080019683
Application ID: 11489030
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for operating a multi-region autofocus video tool-type in a machine vision inspection system, wherein: the multi-region autofocus video tool-type comprises a multi-region autofocus video tool graphical user interface (GUI) including at least one element that indicates when a multi-region autofocus video tool-type is the active tool-type, at least one element that allows a user to activate and deactivate the multi-region autofocus video tool-type, and autofocus region of interest (ROI) indicating elements that may be configured by a user to define a plurality of autofocus ROIs; and the multi-region autofocus video tool-type is included in a machine vision inspection system, the machine vision inspection system comprising a camera portion usable to provide a workpiece image, a control system portion that includes the multi-region autofocus video tool, and a display portion usable to display a field of view of a workpiece image and the autofocus region of interest (ROI) indicating elements of the multi-region autofocus video tool GUI overlaying the workpiece image, the method comprising: (a) displaying the multi-region autofocus video tool GUI including at least a cursor positionable over a workpiece image, after a user activates a multi-region autofocus video tool, wherein the user may position the cursor at a desired position on the workpiece image; (b) in response to the user configuring a first autofocus ROI indicating element to define a first autofocus ROI while the multi-region autofocus video tool is active, storing the parameters of the first autofocus ROI as the ROI parameters of a first member of a first multi-region set of autofocus ROIs; (c) in response to the user configuring a plurality of additional autofocus ROI indicating elements to define a plurality of additional autofocus ROIs while the multi-region autofocus video tool remains active, automatically storing the parameters of each respective additional autofocus ROI as the ROI parameters of a respective additional member of the first multi-region set of autofocus ROIs; (d) determining a shared Z-height search range to be associated with the first multi-region set of autofocus ROIs; and (e) when the autofocus operations of the multi-region autofocus video tool are run, performing operations comprising: (i) acquiring a shared set of workpiece images at a plurality of Z-positions distributed along the shared Z-height search range; and (ii) analyzing the shared set of workpiece images to estimate a respective best focus Z-height for each respective member ROI of the first multi-region set of autofocus ROIs.