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Profiler™ Fabric Inspection

Automatic Fabric Inspection & Quality Monitoring of Textiles

COMVIS Profiler™ is a camera-based fabric inspection system capable of automatic detection of visible deviations in fabrics. With a Profiler™ inspection system, customers achieve a higher and more consistent product quality and optimize both process efficiency and line capacity.

Based on the philosophy that every customer has its own wishes, specifications and budget, Profiler™ has a modular structure. The complete Profiler™-setup is configured based on inspection requirements, as well as the requirements for defect handling and integration and interfacing with other third-party systems. Due to our open data structure, the inspection results can either be handled through our Texplorer™ DDMS management software, or through a third party processing the data into their own control software.

The development of both our customers and COMVIS is a continuous process. That is why COMVIS thinks it most important that our inspection systems are suitable to grow with the needs of the customer and with the speed of technological developments. It’s scalable, flexible and always customizable. Ready for the demands of tomorrow.

About COMVIS

  • 25 years of proven experience in fabric inspection systems
  • High quality machinery and software produced in the Netherlands
  • World wide remote service, support and maintenance
  • The best inspection performance possible

PROFILER™ features

  • Up to 100 m/min inspection speed
  • Suitable for all fabric widths
  • Fully automatic inspection with invisible ink mark system or label applicator
  • Semi-automatic with the possibility to stop defects on a manual inspection table
  • Linescan cameras for common and/or continuous applications
  • Areascan cameras for specific and/or start/stop applications

Invisible Ink Mark System

An IR/UV invisible ink mark system is used to tag the edge of the fabric. This can either be used to mark the Y-position of the defect or to place a synchronization point at a fixed distance. Depending on the material different ink types can be used. The spray gun is mounted on a linear edge tracker system in other to consistently place the mark on the edge of the fabric. The use of an invisible mark verification sensor makes sure the ink mark is placed successful on the edge of the fabric. If the fabric is not suitable for an ink mark system, COMVIS offers the possibility to use a label applicator to label the defects on the edge of the fabric. The labels contain adhesive material only for 50%. The other 50% of the label sticks out of the edge. In this way, you can easily see the positions of the labels in the mother roll. The same marking algorithms and clustering algorithms are used for both systems.

Fabric width & Inspection speed

COMVIS Profiler™ fabric inspection systems are available for all fabrics widths. That means we configure the inspection system based on the customer requirements. Most common systems are between 200 cm and 350 cm wide. But if your range of products is limited to 100 cm width, the modular design will be adapted for this specific width, which saves you space and unnecessary costs. The inspection system is able to detect all kinds of deviations in the surface of the textile, combining high image resolution with speeds up to 100 m/min. The automatic fabric inspection system is suitable for all kinds of uniform grey- and finished fabric, woven or knitted fabric, technical textiles, screens, sieves, (medical) bandage, base layers, denim and other materials.

Offline inspection systems

Depending on the customer’s production process and quality control process, the position of the inspection system can vary. For instance in the final quality department, running the large rolls from batch to batch. These inspection results are often used in the following process, for instance to cut the rolls into smaller rolls, based on an optimized cut plan or to exclude defects from cut panels on a spreading machine. For customers who do not produce the base fabric, but process the rolls in their own plant, they could perform in incoming roll inspection at the customers warehouse.

Inline inspection systems

Inline systems are integrated directly into or onto the line. For instance coating lines, tenter frames, laminating lines or fabric dyeing lines. As inline inspection systems are often retro-fitted into existing lines, available space can sometimes be an issue for integration. Therefore, COMVIS offers the possibility to engineer a customized Profiler™ inspection system, completely integrated into the machines of the customer.

Industries

  • Medical textiles
  • Technical textiles
  • Automotive textiles
  • Composites
  • Apparel textiles
  • Home textiles

Fabrics

  • Woven fabrics
  • Nonwovens
  • Warp knitted fabrics
  • Knitted fabrics
  • Laminated fabrics
  • Coated fabrics
  • Filter fabrics
  • Sieves and nets

Easy operation via HMI

A PROFILER™ fabric inspection system can be operated in multiple ways. Standard operation goes via the user friendly HMI. Article settings from the Texplorer CORE™ inspection software can be selected from the Article tab on the HMI. Select your article, click on start and the inspection system is ready to go. A watchdog signal releases the line to start the motors.

Furthermore, settings for materials, marking distance and defect clustering can be adjusted. But also language settings and user authorization. Using different user authorization levels, you are able to prevent operators from adjusting higher level settings and leave those privileges to the quality manager. Alarms and counters are displayed on the main screen. For instance, machine state, doors opened, number of defects found and length of inspected fabric.

The second way to operate the PROFILER™ inspection system is via OPC communication. This gives the customer, machine builder or system integrator the possibility to completely operate all features of the PROFILER™ system over their own PLC and/or Human Machine Interface.

Main buttons

  • Start/stop
  • Load article
  • Reset counters

Settings

  • Defect clustering
  • Material settings
  • Stopping distance (optional)
  • Marking device settings
  • Label applicator settings
  • User level authorization

Alarms

  • Door sensors
  • Watch dog signal
  • Signal settings from marking devices

Counters

  • Defect counter
  • Seam counter
  • Applied labels/invisible mark counter
  • Length of inspected fabric

Examples of defects

Profiler™ Inspection Systems use Texplorer™ CORE inspection software. With the use of state the art software algorithms, our software marks all areas which deviate from the normal and known structure of the inspected fabric as a suspected area. Smart parameters then define, whether the deviation in the fabric is an actual defect or if the deviation can be defined as acceptable. This allows us to recognize all types of visible defects. For example, warp defects, weft defects, slub, foreign yarn, drop stitch, holes, stain marks, run, needle lines, dye stain marks, snag picks, thick yarns, missing ends, fine end, knots, broken picks, foreign fibre contamination wrinkles and creases.

Illumination

Profiler™ Backlight
A transmitted light source is used for (semi) translucent fabrics and to automatically find the edges of the fabric and determine width. The Profiler™ Backlight is designed and manufactured by COMVIS for perfect integration in our systems and an outstanding homogeneous illuminated surface.

Profiler™ Front lights
For non-translucent fabrics we use Profiler™ Front lights. It delivers homogeneous light onto the inspection area. COMVIS front lights are engineered in such a way that it illuminates the surface from specific angles. It results in the perfect balance between extracting maximum defect information from the camera images and suppressing natural deviations in the fabric considered as acceptable.

Extraordinary inspection results

Using COMVIS Texplorer™ CORE, the industry’s most powerful and modular vision inspection software for woven, nonwoven, knitted and other (technical) textiles, the PROFILER™ is capable of finding the smallest deviations in your product. For example, all kinds of weaving defects, knots, stains, filamentation or contamination. But you control the sensitivity! If for any reason specific deviations are considered as acceptable, just save your article settings with a more tolerant threshold or use our Texplorer™ CORE Rules Engine to exclude specific deviations from the inspection results.

Feature overview & options

Inspection Feature
Texplorer™ CORE T1 optional
Texplorer™ CORE T2 optional
Texplorer™ CORE T3 ✓
Texplorer™ CORE Edge Anomalies not applicable
Texplorer™ CORE Vision Filaments not applicable
Texplorer™ CORE Horizontal Vertical ✓
Texplorer™ CORE Width Detection ✓
Texplorer™ CORE Edge Detection ✓
Texplorer™ CORE AVG optional
Front-end / Back-end communication
OPC Alive signal ✓
OPC Start/stop inspection ✓
OPC Article loading ✓
OPC User defined fields
(e.g. Roll no., Batch no., etc.)		 ✓
OPC Machine state ✓
WCF optional
File based communication optional
Barcode reader optional
IO-features
Watchdog signal ✓
Alarm tower light (signal state) ✓
Seam detector input ✓
Management features
Texplorer™ DDMS Live Viewer ✓
Texplorer™ DDMS Protocol Editor optional
Texplorer™ DDMS Cutting Table Viewer optional
Machine features
Profiler™ frame + doors + covers + rollers ✓
Frontside inspection ✓
Backside inspection optional
Transmitted illumination ✓
Reflective illumination optional
PLC/HMI ✓
Defect marking / synchro system
Label applicator optional
Invisible ink marker optional
Invisible mark verification optional
Barcode scanner optional
Automated edge tracker optional
Raw inspection results
Session folder with defect images and data
(*.XML + *.TIFF)		 ✓
JSON optional
Normalized inspection results
CSV / SQL optional

We are quality fanatics. What about you?

Ask for more info or a quotation