| The purpose of this research work is to device a system that would be able to measure the minute changes in flow of viscous fluids that are being employed in Contour Crafting. We have chosen the method of image processing for measuring the flow rate. In normal circumstances, three dimensional image processing is a complex process, requiring heavy computations, but since our requirement includes supporting a real-time scenario, we need to come up with a customized solution. Such a solution would not only make processing fast but also, real-time. We divide the problem into two parts; first detecting the edge of the protruding material that would provide us with the horizontal width of the material and the other curve detection that would provide us the vertical width. This provides us with the basic shape of the protruding material (figure 1) giving us the approximate volume that needs to be corrected. |
