Innovations at Vision Show West

High performance and ease-of-use marked several cameras, frame grabbers, and software tools displayed at the Vision Show West, held November 19–21, 2002, in Santa Clara, CA.

Sony Electronics (www.sony.com) introduced the XC-HR70, a 1.8-oz, progressive-scan monochrome video camera for high-speed, high-resolution applications such as semiconductor manufacturing and pick-and-place. The camera can alter its vertical scanning frequency to capture images at up to 120 partial frames/s. . . .ThinkEye TE-100, the first in JAI's (www.jai.com) new line of intelligent cameras, consists of a vision processor and a monochrome, progressive-scan CCD sensor with a 659x494-pixel resolution. The camera is powered by the Common Vision Blox image-processing software. . . .Point Grey Research (www.ptgrey.com) introduced the Scorpion, which the firm claims is the fastest IEEE 1394 Firewire progressive-scan camera. Scorpion captures 1280x1024 images at 30 frames/s. . . .Kappa Opto-Electronics (www.kappa-vision.com) is offering all cameras in its DX family with two Firewire ports. The cameras have data transfer rates to 400 Mbits/s for PCB inspection and other applications.

Targeting electronics OEMs and system integrators, Matrox (www.matrox.com) unveiled its Helios XCL high-speed Camera Link frame grabber. A custom ASIC combines a PCI-X controller with a processor to free the host CPU from image formatting and preprocessing tasks. . . .For high-speed, line-scan applications, including inspection of PCBs, wafers, and flat-panel displays, Coreco Imaging (www.corecoimaging.com) introduced the X64-CL series digital frame grabbers. Designed for the 64-bit PCI bus, the frame grabbers can acquire images from two unsynchronized cameras simultaneously and transfer images at up to 528 Mbytes/s. . . .Active Silicon's (www.activesilicon.com) Phoenix frame grabbers support both the 64-bit, 66-MHz PCI bus and the 32-bit, 33-MHz PCI bus. Capturing up to 533 Mbytes/s, the cards are available in Camera Link and LVDS versions and include a software developer's kit.

Inspecting connectors and other electronic components could get easier with iGauge, the pioneer product in a line of task-specific "vision appliances" from ipd (www.goipd.com), a new division of Coreco. The Web-based product, used with an integrated CMOS sensor or an external CCD interface, eases such optical measurements as point positions, lines, angles, hole diameters, and roundness. . . .OEM users can simplify program development with a high-level programming library from Integral Technologies (www.integraltech.com ). Compatible with the company's FlashBus and FlashPoint frame grabbers, the Image & Vision Library (IVL) supports calibration and pattern matching for medical and other applications. . . .With Vision Builder from National Instruments (www.ni.com), engineers with no programming experience can now create machine-vision applications. Vision Builder for Automated Inspection features an interactive image-processing and image-analysis environment with decision-making capabilities and digital I/O support. . . .EasyBGA from Euresys (www.euresys.com) cuts the time engineers need to build a 2-D ball-grid-array inspection application. The tool detects missing and extra balls as well as ball position, pitch, diameter, and circularity.