672

INDUSTRIAL COLOUR INSPECTION BY VIDEO CAMERA

C Connolly and T W W Leung

University of Huddersfield, England

BACKGROUND
Colour is an important property of many mass produced
items, since it attracts the eye and conveys information
quickly. Some packaging colours are so closely
identified with particular brands as to be trade marks,
for example Coca-Cola red and Cadbury purple.
The colour of retail products and their packaging must
be consistent over long production runs, and from one
run to another. When colour consistency is poor, an
impression of low quality is formed in the mind of the
customer.
This is especially damaging in food
packaging, where poor appearance gives the impression
of stale products. In many industries, colour assessment
is carried out off-line by production staff who make a
visual comparison between the current production and a
standard.
Sometimes spectrophotometers or
colorimeters are used to give precise colour
measurements; these instruments, generally, are also
used off-line.
Recent advances in video camera technology, coupled
with techniques developed at the University of
Huddersfield, allow video cameras to be used as colour
measuring instruments.
Cameras are non-contact
sensors, and can therefore be used on-line without
disrupting production. On-line inspection enables a
faster response to faults, saving waste and improving
quality.
This paper describes the research done at the University
of Huddersfield, presents the results of laboratory tests
and addresses two particular industrial applications.

the human eye. In order that video cameras may be

used for colour measurement purposes, the principal
requirement is that should be stable and their response
repeatable. An additional requirement is that the
camera should be sensitive, in order to detect small
colour variations in the product.
Beginning in 1985, Connolly et al (1,2,3) investigated
the sources of colour error in video cameras and in
images of three-dimensional objects. This work has
been continued more recently by Leung (4). A
scientific study has been made of the errors inherent in
video camcras, including noise, drift in gain and
balance, saturation of small bright areas, the effect of
background colour, and quantisation errors. Three
different types of camera have been studied, and
techniques have been developed to overcome or
compensate for their errors. This work has culminated
in the development of a method of automatic camera
control, for which a patent has been filed by the
University of Huddersfield (5).

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF CAMERA ERRORS

Three types of video camera have been tested:
(i) a Shibaden HV-40SK monochrome vidicon
camera, used with colour separation filters;
(ii) a JVC BY-1 10E 3-tube saticon camera;
(iii) a Hitachi HVC I O 3-chip CCD camera;
The tests involved capturing images, windowing areas
of interest, and plotting pixel clusters in RGB other
colour spaces. The procedure was described in (2) and
(3).

CHARACTERlSTICS OF VIDEO CAMERAS

Cameras have three major advantages over colorimeters
and spectrophotometers for industrial colour inspection.
Firstly, they can be used on-line. Secondly, threedimensional objects may be inspected. Thirdly, many
colours may be inspected simultaneously. In contrast,
spectrophotometers and colorimeters are designed to
measure a uniformly coloured flat surface in contact
with the instrument's aperture, typically of 5 mm
diameter.
However, cameras are not meant to be accurate colour
measurement instruments. They are primarily designed
to reproduce colour images of a quality acceptable to
Image Processing And Its Applications, 4-6 July 1995
Conference Publication No. 410,O IEE 1995.

When the scene comprises uniformly coloured flat

matte surfaces under uniform illumination, the spread of
each cluster results from the inherent noise in the
camera. Cluster size is a measure of the precision
which may be achieved by that particular camera.
Cluster separation determines the closeness of the
colours which can be distinguished. The position of the
cluster is affected by the gain of the camera and its
colour balance, and by the colour of the illumination.
In a system where colours are taught and then inspected,
any movement in the position of the cluster from one
image capture to the next will cause colours to be
wrongly classified.

673
Monochrome Camera
Preliminary work with the monochrome camera made it
clear that the auto gain control circuit creates problems
in the accurate sensing of colour. If the gain is allowed
to adjust itself independently through the three colour
separation filters, this tends to desaturate the colours in
the scene, and also leads to a variation of colour balance
according to the dominant colour of the scene. This
means that objects produce different signals if presented
on different coloured backgrounds.
There was a tendency for small areas of bright colour to
become saturated through one or more of the filters,
because the auto gain control responds to the average
signal, not to its peak. This effect has been noted by
Klinker (6), who refers to it as "colour clipping". The
camera signals were found to vary markedly with
camera temperature.
To improve the repeatability of measurement with the
monochrome camera, the auto gain circuitry was
disabled, and the camera set by hand. To avoid colour
clipping, the settings were adjusted so that a white
object in the scene gave signals some way below the
maximum detectable signal.
The camera was
repositioned well away from the lights, to avoid
overheating.
Three-Tube Camera
Experiments were then carried out with the 3-tube
colour camera. The red, green and blue channel
analogue outputs were each digitised by 8-bit analogue
to digital converters in a Matrox MVP-NP framestore
card fitted into a personal computer. To test the
precision and repeatability of the camera, test objects, in
the form of flat mondrians, were viewed repeatedly over
a period of time, and the data was analysed statistically.
The 3-tube camera was tested for repeatability over 5hour and 1 I-day periods. The camera was preheated,
then switched on and calibrated according to the
standard user instructions.
Then repeated
measurements were made of the test object, without
further calibration. The camera was adjusted manually
to suitable settings, which then remained constant
throughout the test period.
It was shown by these experiments that the RGB values
varied with time, changing rapidly in the first half hour,
and more slowly From then on, but never settling down
completely. Tests again revealed that when the colour
patches were displayed on a different background, the
3-tube camera gave different measurements. The RGB
values of any colour patch were biased towards the
colour of the background.

The time variation and the background effect may both

be overcome by including in the scene a standard
object, and by adjusting the camera to achieve the same
readings on this standard every time an image is
captured. This ensures repeatability. Any variations in
light source or in camera gain are cancelled out.
This control technique gave a significant improvement
in the stability and repeatability of measurement, as
shown by figures published by Connolly et a1 (7).
However, the control technique was time consuming
and frustrating, since the operator was required to adjust
the camera controls each time an image was captured, in
accordance with advice issued by the computer.
Three-Chip Camera
With the 3-chip camera the situation was improved in
two ways: firstly, the solid state technology is less
noisy than CRT technology, so the cluster size is
reduced; secondly, the camera has an RS232C remote
control link. which allows direct control to be exercised
by the software. The camera settings may be controlled
each time an image is captured, ensuring repeatable
readings, while freeing the operator from the need to
make any manual adjustments. The camera control
techniques developed in the studies with the
monochrome and three-tube cameras were implemented
in a special control program (4), for which a patent has
been tiled ( 5 ) . This software controls the aperture, the
gain, and the colour balance of the 3-chip camera.
SUITABILITY
OF
VARIOUS
TRANSFORMATION EQUATIONS

COLOUR

As has already been mentioned, the size and separation

of the pixel clusters affects the precision of colour

measurement and the power of resolution of close
colours.
When scenes involve three-dimensional
objects, their surface colours appear to vary because of
lighting effects, some areas being highlighted, and some
in shadow. This leads to larger clusters.
By
transforming the pixels' RGB values to other colour
spaces, the size and shape of the clusters are altered. A
study of various colour space transformations has been
carried out to identify which produce the smallest and
best separated clusters for three-dimensional scenes.
Another important consideration is the uniformity of
each colour space. Uniform colour spaces have been
routinely
used with spectrophotometers and
colorimeters for many years to provide a simple
framework for deciding between acceptable and
unacceptable colour differences. They have been
developed over a period of many years from studies of
flat two-dimensional objects, and it is only recently, for
example by 'Tominaga (8), that they have been applied
in the field of machine vision. A uniform colour space

674
aims to transform instrumental measurements into
metrics proportional to perceptual colour differences.
Nine different colour spaces were studied to find which
was the most suitable for use with images of industrial
scenes. Full details are published in (3) and in Connolly
(9), but a summary of the findings is given here.

Clusters from 3-d objects

Recent work in physics-based vision shows that, under
certain conditions, the light reflected by a threedimensional object with uniform surface colour has
constant spectral balance, but varies in intensity. H.C.
Lee et al (10) provided evidence to support this from
tele-spectroradiometer measurements of the reflectances
of various three-dimensional objects. Klinker (6)
developed an algorithm to segment scenes whilst
ignoring colour changes due to highlights and shading.
Klinker worked in RGB space, but a simpler approach
is to transform the RGB values to a colour space in
which the chromaticity metrics are independent of light
intensity. The pixels from a uniformly coloured surface
then form a small cluster, and segmentation becomes
simply a matter of thresholding either side of the
cluster.
The nine colour transformations studied included the
following from classical colour theory, colour television
and machine vision approaches:

separate from the other clusters. The clusters were

separate in xy, u*v* and a*b* chromaticity planes; in
the other spaces, the brown and orange clusters touched.

Uniformity of Colour Spaces

The Munsell Book of Color (15) provides a set of
physical samples arranged in equal perceptual colour
steps, and has been used by many researchers (1 1) for
testing the uniformity of colour spaces. A selection of
chips from the Munsell Book was plotted in each colour
space, to compare their uniformity. Tabulated colour
measurement values from Wyszecki and Stiles (16)
were used in these calculations.
Details of the uniformity results were given in (3), and
CIELAB emerged as the most uniform of the colour
spaces studied. Since CIELAB gave good cluster
separation [or the three dimensional cylinders and is
already widely accepted throughout industry for the
measurement of colour differences, we chose to use it in
our colour inspection system. However, it is shown in
(9) that the chromaticity metrics of CIELAB are
intensity dependent. Further research is underway into
the use of a logarithmic colour space, in which the
chromaticity metrics are independent of illumination
intensity. The uniformity of logarithmic space is better
than CIELAB in its hue metric, but slightly worse in
chroma.

PERFORMANCE AND APPLICATIONS

CIE 193 I chromaticity diagram x,y;
CIE 1960 uniform chromaticity u,v;
CIE 1976 L* U* v*;
CIE 1976 L* a* b* (CIELAB);
PAL L U V;
computer graphics HSV;
Yuichi Ohta I1,I2,I3.
The equations recommended by the C.I.E. are published
in many textbooks, for example Wyszecki ( I 1). The
PAL LUV equation may be found in Patchett (12), the
computer graphics algorithm in Heam and Baker (13)
and the final set of equations in Ohta (14).
Pieces of brightly coloured matte paper were cut, rolled
into cylinders, and stuck on to black card. Eight colours
were used: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet,
brown and white. The cylinders, their axes horizontal,
were illuminated from above by five D65 fluorescent
tubes, and the 3-tube saticon camera was placed in front
of them. The geometry was designed to avoid specular
reflections but produce shadows. A vertical strip of
pixels from each cylinder was studied, using each of the
above transformations. If a colour transformation is to
be useful for the inspection of surface colour in threedimensional objects, the pixels from each colour must
form a tight cluster in the chromaticity plane, clearly

The 3-chip camera, controlled by our special software,

was tested for repeatability. The standard pattem was a
white card displaying 17 coloured rectangles from the
Pantone Color Formula Guide (17). The worst colour
difference recorded was 1.61 CIELAB units, and the
average was 0.33 units. Details are given in (7)
The repeatability of our camera-based inspection system
is an order of magnitude worse than that of a typical
or
high
quality
benchtop
colorimeter
spectrophotometer. Nevertheless, the advantages of the
video camera make it a suitable instrument for on-line
colour inspection in a variety of manufacturing
industries. The camera-based colour inspection system
has been demonstrated to potential users in the fields of
textiles, construction, printing, brewing, and beverage
can production.

Textile Yarns
One particular application in the textile industry
involves the inspection of yarns. The standard yam, a
sample which was slightly off shade but acceptable,
plus a sample which was unacceptable in shade, were
studied. The three yams were attached to a sheet of
white cardboard which was propped up in the back of

675
the lighting cabinet with five fluorescent tubes lit. The
standard colour was trained, and the other two samples
were used to set acceptability limits. Then the three
yams were repeatedly measured over a period of 9 days,
without retraining the system. The samples were kept
in an envelope between inspections to avoid fading.
The average colour difference between the original
measurement of the standard yam and subsequent
measurements was 0.96 CIELAB units. This is higher
than the 0.33 CIELAB units observed for flat objects,
because of the disturbance caused when the yam is
taken out of the envelope, and the fact that its shape
incorporates some shadows. However, the repeatability
was sufficiently good for the colour inspection system
to correctly label the acceptable and unacceptable
samples in all 26 sets of measurements over a 9-day
period.
Beverage Cans
Another application is the inspection of beverage cans.
On some production lines, the cans are filled before
they are printed, so waste due to unacceptable colour is
expensive. Current practice is to remove a can from the
line every 15 minutes, and inspect it either by eye, or
with the help of a hand-held spectrophotometer, using
its smallest aperture so as to minimise the effect of the
can's curvature. Since the cans are produced at the rate
of approximately 1000 per minute, waste rapidly
accumulates once the colour goes off-shade.
Beverage cans are a very challenging application, since
the objects are three-dimensional, highly reflective, and
of high-chroma colours. Our first measurements were
disappointing. Table 1 shows measurements of a pair of
soft drink cans - the standard colour 'std' and an offshade sample 'samp'. The cans were measured by a
spectrophotometer, and by our automatically controlled
3-chip camera, using its normal setting of 0dB gain.
The camera measures a colour difference "Col. Diff."
between the standard and sample cans, but in the
opposite direction from the spectrophotometer as
regards the b* metric. Note that we are not concerned
with the absolute accuracy of measurement, but with the
accuracy of the colour difference between sample and
standard.
The problem is due to the quantisation errors of the 8bit analogue to digital converters. Both the G and B
channel measurements of the standard can are equal to
the black levels for these channels. The sensitivity of
the human eye increases at low signal levels, and
spectrophotometers mimic this behaviour. The camera,
however, uses linear analogue to digital conversion, so
the quantisation errors become very significant at low
signals. lkeda et al (18) showed that the worst colour
difference between the original analogue values and the

digitised RGB values using 8-bit analogue to digital

converters, was 10 CIELAB units. In order to reduce
this to 1 C'IELAB unit, 12-bit analogue to digital
converters ai-e required.
The use of 12-bit converters would add very
significantly to the cost of the complete machine vision
system; so advantage has been taken of the gain
controls of the Hitachi HVC IO camera, which can
operate at gains of 0, +9 and + I8 dB. The cans were
remeasured with the camera at +18 dB gain. This
provided extra resolution in the G and B channels, and a
significant signal above the black level was detected in
both channels. The amplified signal was scaled back to
0 dB by the following equation:
18 dB signal - I8 dB black
0 dB signal ::

7.94

(1)

The R signal, of course, saturated with +I8 dB gain. Its

0 dB value was therefore used, after subtracting the 0
dB black signal. The CIELAB equation uses a nonlinear function to calculate L* a* and b*, and it is
affected by a change of origin. Subtraction of the black
signal level leads to better agreement between
spectrophotometer and camera measurements of colour
difference. Table I shows that the camera was then
able to detect the difference between the two cans, and
was in agreement with the spectrophotometer about the
direction of the colour difference.
TABLE 1- Colour Measurements of Beverage Cans

The technique developed for the inspection of beverage

cans has been incorporated in our software control
system. The software recognises when a signal requires
increased resolution, and switches to a higher gain band
when necessary. In this way, the equivalent of I I-bit
resolution is achieved, with no increase in hardware
cost. The charts in (18) indicate a worst case
quantisation error of 1.5 CIELAB units with 1 I-bit
digitisation.
The two can\ studied here were purchased from a retail
outlet, so they illustrate a colour difference which
passed the current quality control checks. The 'sample'
can appeared faded in comparison with the 'standard,
the colour difference being easily discemable to the eye.
It is clear [hat our camera-based colour inspection
system is able to detect this colour difference, and its
on-line use would improve the quality of appearance of
this product.

676
CONCLUSIONS
Cameras have three major advantages over colorimeters
and spectrophotometers, making them much more
practicable for industrial colour inspection:
a) they can be used on-line;
b) three-dimensional objects may be inspected;
c) many colours may be inspected simultaneously.
This paper has described research into the problems
encountered when video cameras are employed for the
inspection of colour in three-dimensional scenes. This
has led to the development of an automatic control
system which significantly improves the repeatability of
the camera.
Trials to date on textile yarns and beverage cans have
proved that this camera-based system is at least as good
as current colour quality control systems. Moreover it
offers advantages of reliability, reduced need for
supervision, and immediate waming of colour drift.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Leung's work was supported by a Bursary from the
University of Huddersfield.

8. Tominaga S, 1992, "Color Classification of Natural

Color Images", Colour Research and &D . lication, 12,4,
230-239
9. Connolly C, 1994, "The Relationship between
Colour Metrics and the Appearance of Three
Dimensional Coloured Objects", submitted to
. .
h and ,IO. Lee H C, Breneman E J and Schulte C, 1990,
"Modeling Light Reflection for Computer Color
Vision", IEEE Trans on Patte m Analvsis and Machine
Intelli_eence, 12,402-409
11. Wyszecki, G., 1981, "Uniform Colour Spaces",
Golden Jubilee of Colour in the C.I.E, Publ. Soc. Dyers
and Colorists, Bradford, UK

12. Patchett, G.N., 1967, "Colour Television with

particular reference to the PAL System", Norman Price,
London, UK
13. Hearn, D. and Baker, M.P., 1986, "Computer
Graphics" Prentice-Hall
14. Ohta, Y., 1985, "Knowledge-Based Interpretation
of Outdoor Natural Scenes", Pitman, London, UK

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m,

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Colour Data for Industrial Applications", PhD Thesis,
Polytechnic of Huddersfield, UK
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Segmentation of Industrial Images", PhD Thesis,
University of Huddersfield, UK
5. UK Patent Application 94 16406.8, 1994, "Colour
Inspection System", in the name of University of
Huddersfield, Inventors: Connolly C and Leung T W W
6. Klinker G J, 1993, "A Physical Approach to Color
Image Understanding", A.K. Peters, Wellesley, MA
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Use of Video Cameras for Remote Colour
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