ArUco Marker-Based Bend Angle Measurement System
Overview
I developed a desktop application to measure and record bend angles in real-time using computer vision. The team needed a way to quantify articulation during testing, but existing methods required manual measurement or expensive specialized equipment.
Now, engineers can attach small ArUco markers to test articles and get continuous bend angle readings displayed on screen and logged to CSV files. They can track both actively controlled bending sections and passive sections that respond to external forces.
The application handles the full measurement workflow, from camera calibration through data collection. Users calibrate their camera once using a checkerboard pattern, then the system tracks marker poses frame-by-frame and computes bend angles from the relative orientation changes between markers.
This vision-based approach replaced manual protractor measurements and provided continuous data logging, enabling detailed characterization of articulation behavior during bench testing.
Key Features
- Real-time bend angle display: computes and displays bend angles at 10 Hz with moving-average smoothing.
- Multi-section tracking: supports simultaneous tracking of up to 3 different bending sections.
- Integrated camera calibration: built-in workflow captures checkerboard images, computes intrinsic parameters, and saves calibration files with focus settings for repeatability.
- CSV data logging: records timestamped bend angle data at configurable intervals for post-test analysis.
- Adjustable camera controls: sliders for exposure, brightness, contrast, and focus.
