Short Wave Infra-Red (SWIR)imaging is now more economical with the introduction of Allied Vision’s TECless Goldeye cameras. SWIR cameras open up numerous application possibilities for machine vision solutions, since they are able to detect defects that are not visible to the naked eye.
SWIR cameras have an InGaAs (Indium Gallium Arsenide) sensor that detects wavelengths between 900nm and 1,700nm. These wavelengths are invisible to the human eye and CCD / CMOS cameras, however SWIR cameras detect the invisible wavelength found in various applications. For example water accumulations inside fruits or defects within silicon products.
Light emitted by silicon in solar cells peak at 1150nm
Learn more about applications solved with SWIR camerasHERE.
SWIR cameras typically require Thermal Electric Coolers (TEC’s) which enable low-noise imaging in the spectral range of 900mm to 1,700nm. Additionally, the TEC’s compensate for high temperature fluctuations and stabilizes the image sensor.
For temperature stable environments,Allied Vision now has a “TECless” InGaAs camera providing a lower entry price point, in turn an excellent price-performance ratio.
The Goldeye G-033 and CL-033 TEClessInGaAs cameras are the solution to applications unachievable with standard cameras offering the following features
SWIR imaging from 900nm to 1700nm
High frame rates of 301 fps with VGA resolution
Power over Ethernet (PoE)
Compact design with no fan
Lower cost vs TEC versions
GigE and Camera link interfaces.
Click below for the full specifications on the Goldeye TECless cameras and click “Get Quote” for pricing
1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection. With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!
What is CoaXPress, especially with “CXP-6” capability?
CoaXPress is an established industry standard allowing high speed communications over coaxial cable. The current version supports bit rates up to 6.25 Gbits/sec over a single coaxial cable. When used in parallel, two or more coaxial cables can provide incremental speed gains. The naming convention associated with CoaXPress signify the bit rate as seen in the chart below. In cases that you see CXP-6 has a bit rate of 6.25 Gb/s. The 4 x means the number of lanes. Multiply the 2 and you get your total bit rate.
The new Allied Vision Bonito Pro camerasutilize 4 DIN 1.0/2.3 connectors on a CXP-6 interface (4 lanes) x 6.25Gbits/Sec. This allows for resolutions of up to 26 megapixels to reach 70 frames per second (fps). The first two Bonito PRO models (Bonito PRO X-2620 and X-1250) support high resolution with 26.6MP and 12.5MP at 80 and 142 fps respectively.
The Bonito PRO cameras are ideal for a wide range of applications including, 2D/ 3D surface inspection, high speed printing, PCB & Electronics inspection.
Even faster frame rates can be achieved using the Bonito Pro X1250 (12.5MP)in partial scan mode. Set to a 768 line height, a rate of 503 fps can be achieved!
The following video’s are good representations of what this relates to in real applications which you can appreciate.
Full specifications for the Allied Vision Bonito Pro cameras can be found HERE, but main features and benefits include:
Sensors available in Monochrome (X-1250B) and Color (X-1250C) and extended near-infrared (X1250B NIR ) models
On board defect pixel and 2D fixed pattern noise correction for improved image quality
Fan-less design for industrial imaging applications.
DIN 1.0 / 2.3 CoaXPress connections for secure operation in industrial environments.
Single cable solutions using trigger and power over CoaXPress (PoCXP)
1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection. With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!
The first Genie Nano camera model with a quad-polarizer filter using the Sony Pregius IMX250-MZR 5.1MP monochrome image sensor is now available. The Teledyne Dalsa Nano M2450 cameraincorporates the nanowire polarizer filter allowing detection of both the angle and amount of polarized light.
What problems can the Nano M2450 polarized camera solve?
Polarized filtering can reduce the effects of reflections and glare from multiple directions and reveal otherwise undetectable features in the target scene. Polarization enables detection of stress, birefringence, through-reflection and glare from surfaces like glass, plastic, and metal. Sony’s newest image sensor, with its pixel-level polarizer structure, enables the detection of both the amount and angle of polarized light across a scene.
Four different angled polarizers (90°, 45°, 135° and 0°) are positioned on each pixel, and every block of four pixels comprises a calculation unit.
How does polarization work? Theory of operation
Polarization direction is defined as the electrical direction. Light, with its electrical field oscillating perpendicular to the nano wire grid, passes through the filter while that in the parallel direction is rejected.
For Polarized light, only the portion of the light vector perpendicular to the angle of the nanowire filter grid passes.
For example, with a wire-grid polarizer filter at 90 deg. to the maximum transmission is for polarized light at an angle of 0 deg.
The polarizer filter is placed directly on the sensor’s pixel array, beneath the micro-lens array. This design, compared to polarize filters on top of the micro lens array reduced the possibility of light at a polarized angle being misdirected into adjacent pixels (cross talk) and incorrectly detected at the wrong angle.
The Genie Nano’s polarizer filter on the camera sensor is a 2 x 2 pattern, with each pixel having a nanowire polarizer filter with different angles (90, 45, 135 and 0 degree’s)
The image output pattern of the monochrome camera is arranged in 2 x 2 pixel block as follows:
That is, the first line output is an alternating sequence of pixels 0 & 35 degrees, with the following line of 45 and 90 degrees.
Given the proportion of light available through these four filters, any angle of polarized light can be calculated. Any given state of polarization can be composed by two linearly polarized waves in perpendicular directions. The state of polarization is determined by the relative amplitude and difference in phase between the two component waves.
Calculations on the 2×2 filter blocks result in a single pixel for each polarizer filter angle, therefore the resulting image is one fourth the original image resolution. For example, with an original image of 2464×2056, the resulting image is 1232×1028 (original buffer width/2 and original buffer height/2) for a single polarizing angle.
Teledyne Dalsa offers a Polarization demo user interface making it easy to test the polarization techniques for various applications. This includes the ability to see the results of various processing algorithms with the summed images.
As part of the demo program, images can be displayed with pseudo-color mapping
In summary, the new Dalsa Nano M2450 polarized camera can help resolve defects not detected by traditional imaging! Contact 1st Vision to arrange a camera demo in which we will provide the demo polarization software as well or discuss your application. Or click HERE to request a quote
1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection. With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!
Pulsing (aka strobing) a machine vision LED lightis powerful technique that can beneficial to machine vision systems in various ways.
This blog post outlines 5 benefits you will receive from pulsing a LED light head. Gardasoft is an industry leader in strobe controllers capable of driving 3rd party LED light heads or custom LED banks for machine vision.
1 – Increase the LED light output
It is common to use pulsed light to “freeze” motion for high speed inspection. But, when the light is on only a short term in burst, its possible to increase the light output beyond the LED manufacturers specified maximum, using a technique called “Overdrive”. In many cases, the LED can be powered by 10X over the constant current power input in turn providing brighter pulses of light. When synchronized with the camera acquisition, a brighter scene is generated.
2 – Extend the life of the LED
As mentioned in the first benefit, strobing a LED light head only turns on the LED for short period of time. In many cases, the duty cycles are very low which extends the life of the LED and any degradation in turn, keeping the scene at a consistent brightness for years. (i.e. If the duty cycle is only 10%, the lifetime of the LED head will increase by 10%)
3 – Ambient Light control
Ambient light conditions frequently interfere with machine vision measurements and these issues can be solved by pulsing and over driving the system’s LEDs. For example, over driving the LED by 200% doubles the light intensity and enables the camera exposure to be halved, so reducing the effects of ambient light by a factor of 4. The end result is the cameras exposure is only utilizing light from the give LED source and NOT ambient light.
4 – High speed imaging and Increased depth of field
Motion blur in images from fast-moving objects can be eliminated with appropriate pulsing of the light. In some cases a defined camera exposure will be good enough to freeze motion (read our blog on calculating camera exposure), but may suffer in light intensity with constant illumination. “Over driving” a light can boost the output up to 10x its brightness rating in short pulses. Increased brightness could allow the whole system to be run faster because of the reduced exposure times. Higher light output may also allow the aperture to be reduced to give better depth of field.
Extended Depth of Field (DOF) is achieved with a brighter light allowing the f-stop to be turned down
Gardasoft controllers include our patented SafePower™ and SafeSense™ technology which prevents over driving from damaging the light.
5 -Multi-Lighting schemed & Computational Imaging
Lighting controllers can be used to reduce the number of camera stations. Several lights are set up at a single camera station and pulsed at different intensities and duration’s in a predefined sequence.
Generate edge and texture images using shape from shading
Each different lighting can highlight particular features in the image. Multiple measurements can be made at a single camera station instead of needing multiple stations and reduces, mechanical complexity saving money. For example, sequentially triggering 3 different types of lighting could allow a single camera to acquire specific images for bar code reading, surface defect inspection and a dimensional check in rapid succession.
Pulsing can also be used for computational imaging, where a component is illuminated sequentially by 4 different lights from different directions. The resultant images would be combined to exclude the effect of random reflections from the component surface. Contact us and ask for the white paper on Computational imaging to learn more
The images on the right (top and bottom) were taken with bright field and dark field lighting. The left images is the the result of the computational imaging combining the lighting techniques allowing particles and water bubble to be seen
Pulsed multiple lighting schemes can also benefit line scan imaging by using different illumination sources to capture alternate lines. Individual images for each illumination source are then easily extracted using image processing software.
In conclusion, strobe controllers can provide many benefits and save money in an overall setup more than the cost of a controller!
1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection. With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!
Short Wave Infra-Red (SWIR) imaging is now more economical with the introduction of Allied Vision’s TECless Goldeye cameras. SWIR cameras open up numerous application possibilities for machine vision solutions, since they are able to detect defects that are not visible to the naked eye.
