Abstract
The purpose of this study is to develop a convenient and precise method to detect distance between small-diameter endmill and work surface based on image processing. A non-contact method using a CCD camera and a thin reflection mirror was proposed in this study to detect the distance without any skills. The CCD images were subjected to three steps of digital image processing. The first step was an image thresholding. The second step was a Laplacian edge detection and the third step was a pattern recognition of the edges. As a result an equation was derived for the distance on the image and the actual distance between the endmill and workpiece.
