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Camera Selection Guide

Camera types:

Areascan
Area scan cameras are the obvious choice for the majority of machine vision applications. We have a wide range of makes and models from basic 780x560 pixels up to high-end MegaPixel cameras.
Linescan
Linescan cameras build up a continuous, scrolling image from a single line sensor. Linescan cameras are commonly used for web inspection in applications such as sheet metal forming, food inspection, seam/weld tracking, width measurements or any situation where the product is presented on a continually moving conveyor belt.
Smart cameras
A Smart camera is a single unit that incorporates a sensor, a processor and I/O, they are generally similar in size to a standard machine vision camera. Often they provide a cost effective solution in applications that only require a single view. Some of our smart cameras offer powerful on-board processing for 3D profiling/measurements or high-speed acquisition.
High Speed
With frame rates of 500 fps at full (1280x1024) resolution, and adjustable region of interest (ROI), these cameras find applications in many areas. We have cameras with up to 8Gb of on board memory, which can record 12 seconds of megapixel imagery at 500fps.
Monochrome
Monochrome cameras are the most suitable type for the majority of machine vision applications. We have a range of analogue and digital models with a wide variety of resolutions and speeds and use varied interface technologies such as Firewire and CameraLink™, USB, analogue video and RS-170.
Colour
There are some applications where colour information is vital, either because the subject is polychromatic, or because the colour information is a distinguishing feature of the analysis.

Sensor types:

CCD
CCD (Charge Coupled Devices) use light sensitive material to convert photons into electrical charge. They use shift registers to transfer the charge from each pixel to form the video signal. CCD cameras are more sensitive than CMOS cameras.
CMOS
Also use light sensitive material but have a random access method for transferring the pixel information rather than shift registers. CMOS cameras are typically lower cost with a larger dynamic range. The random access method means they are flexible in pixel address for which is needed for partial scanning etc. They are capable of more frames per second than CCD, 100s or even 1000s.

Data transfer protocols:

IEEE-1394, (Firewire™), is a low-cost, high-bandwidth real-time data transfer standard. It has been adopted by several companies as an interfacing technology for machine vision systems, and simple device networking. It enables data transfer rates up to 50 M Bytes/sec. The new IEEE-1394b standard is a high-speed revision of the original which allows for faster transfer rates of up to 800 Mbytes/sec.
CameraLink™ is a high-speed data transfer protocol specifically designed for camera-framegrabber interfacing. It significantly simplifies interconnection between camera and framegrabber. CameraLink™ has a range of levels of compliance: base (300 M Bytes/sec), medium (600 M Bytes/sec), and full (900 M Bytes/sec).
USB-2 is the higher speed version of the USB interface commonly used to connect computer peripherals. It enables transfer rates up to 60 M Bytes/sec.
Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) is a high bandwidth development of the standard ethernet protocol used for PC and peripheral network connection. It enables transfer rates up to 80 M Bytes/sec.
Composite video is the standard analogue video signal which is used in low cost cameras.

Details of most of our cameras are on this site, but there are more derivatives so please call us if you require anything else.