Matrox debuts hardware, software additions at Vision 2009
Vision 2009, November 3-5, Stuttgart, Germany, www.messe-stuttgart.de/vision/.
Rick Nelson, Editor in Chief -- Test & Measurement World, 11/9/2009 10:22:47 AM
Matrox Imaging at Vision 2009 on November 3–5, Stuttgart, Germany, announced several new products, including Nehalem-based boards, Stratix IV-based frame grabbers, a software processing pack that adds a bead inspection tool, and a rugged industrial camera.
Matrox announced two PICMG 1.3 boards for its high-performance computing (HPC) platform, Matrox Supersight e2. The new system host board (SHB-5520) and the x86 accelerator board (XAB-5520) support Intel's latest-generation microarchitecture, Nehalem, through the use of the Intel 5520 chipset.
"The Nehalem microarchitecture features an all-new memory architecture coupled with QuickPath Interconnect (QPI)," explained Pierantonio Boriero, product line manager, Matrox Imaging. "This is good news for demanding image processing applications like semiconductor wafer and mask inspection, flat panel display (FPD) inspection, and CT scanning."
The Nehalem microarchitecture, said Boriero, will bring performance gains to high-throughput machine-vision and imaging applications whose data volumes continue to increase. Memory directly attached to the CPU offers higher bandwidth as a result of a shorter path, he said, so traditionally I/O-bound operations (such as arithmetic and spatial filters with small kernels) enjoy higher performance. Intel QPI, the basis of a distributed shared memory architecture, improves communication between multiple processors, encouraging parallelism, which translates into performance gains for compute-bound operations like morphology with large kernels as well as I/O-bound operations.
FPGA-based frame grabbers
Matrox also announced that the Matrox Radient eCL Camera Link frame grabber now supports the Altera Stratix IV processing FPGAs. "With its 820K logic elements (LEs) the Stratix IV brings the processing capabilities of the Matrox Radient eCL to a new level," explained Boriero. "More processing elements enable a greater amount of processing parallelism. When greater parallelism is coupled with the higher clock rates of the Stratix IV, a higher overall image processing throughput can be achieved. This is ideal for applications with high volumes of data such as electronics manufacturing and inspection, semiconductor wafer manufacturing, and medical imaging."
FPGA processing is suitable for many standard image processing tasks that can overwhelm the host CPU such as filtering, transforms, flat field correction, and dead pixel replacement.
MIL Processing Pack 2
The new Matrox MIL 9 Processing Pack 2 is the latest processing pack for the Matrox Imaging Library, a software toolkit for image analysis, machine vision, medical imaging and video analytics. MIL 9 Processing Pack 2's bead tool inspects material applied as a continuous sinuous bead, such as adhesives and sealants used in automotive applications; it identifies discrepancies in application length, placement, and width as well as discontinuities.
MIL 9 Processing Pack 2 also enhances the support for performing laser-based 3-D range finding. The physical camera-laser setup requirements are now relaxed so the laser no longer needs to be perfectly perpendicular to the scanning surface. Also included is the ability to fit a plane to collected 3-D points, masking unwanted regions if necessary, to create a reference for subsequent 3-D analysis. With MIL 9 Processing Pack 2, developers can obtain basic statistics on scanned objects such as volume and deviation. MIL 9 Processing Pack 2 also enables the use of the native 3D range data provided by third-party 3D ranging cameras.
Also included in MIL 9 Processing Pack 2 is support for new code types, histogram-based color matching for handling multi-color regions, an interactive utility for experimenting with the color analysis tools, and a number of basic image processing operators (top/bottom-hat filter, window leveling, cumulative histogram, binarization off cumulative histogram, correlation, flat-field correction, and dead-pixel correction).
Finally with respect to MIL, Matrox Imaging will provide support for Windows 7 through a refresh of MIL 9 called MIL 9 R2.
Industrial camera
Matrox also announced its GatorEye industrial IP67-rated camera for machine vision applications "Machine vision is used in many different types of industrial applications, and vision systems are often placed in less than ideal conditions," explained Fabio Perelli, product manager at Matrox Imaging. "Factory environments can be dusty or damp, and vibrations from industrial equipment can put stresses on the camera. The Matrox GatorEye camera is designed for the harshest and most demanding environments, and we built it with a sturdy, dust-proof and washable casing." GatorEye is currently available in six sensor configurations: 640x480 pixels at 110 fps with a 1/3-in. monochrome or color CCD; 1280x960 pixels at 22 fps with a 1/3-in. monochrome or color CCD; and 1600 x 1200 pixels at 15 fps 1/1.8-in. monochrome or color CCD. For connectivity to external devices, Matrox GatorEye includes an opto-coupled trigger input, strobe output, eight GPIOs, and a controlled current source for driving LED illuminators directly. The camera can be powered either by 12 to 24 VDC or by Power over Ethernet (PoE). GatorEye will be available in Q1 2010.
European integrator program
Finally, Matrox said that following a successful launch in North America, it is bringing its Authorized Integrator Program to Europe. The Matrox Authorized Integrator Program will help European manufacturers find qualified, local machine vision consultants to integrate vision systems into their manufacturing processes. Matrox Imaging European Sales Manager Sam Lopez said, "The Authorized Integrator Program means that European manufacturers will be able to look in their own back yards and find local vision experts with the knowledge and experience to build powerful turn-key imaging solutions."
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