In this chapter, we are going to introduce the first step in an AOI algorithm and try to isolate different parts or objects in a scene. We are going to take the example of the object detection and classification of three object types (screw, packing ring, and nut) and develop them in this chapter and Chapter 6, Learning Object Classification.

Imagine that we are in a company that produces these three objects. All of them are in the same carrier tape. Our objective is to detect each object in the carrier tape and classify each one to allow a robot to put each object on the correct shelf:

In this chapter, we are going to learn how to isolate each object and detect its position in the image in pixels. In the next chapter, we are going to learn how to classify each isolated object to recognize if it is a nut, screw, or a packing ring.

In the following...