Highlights

The Automated Imaging Association (AIA), which maintains the Camera Link standard, reports that the Camera Link committee has approved two annexes to the standard. Annex D adds electrical descriptions, allowing manufactures to create cables optimized for varying combinations of length, diameter, and flexibility. It also defines a connector that permits Camera Link to be integrated into miniature and remote-head cameras.

Annex E provides an optional feature for powering and controlling the camera using a single cable similar to USB and FireWire. Called Power over Camera Link (PoCL), this capability eliminates the need for a separate power cable while providing full backward compatibility for systems that do not use PoCL.

Both annexes are part of Camera Link 1.2, which the AIA expects to release later this year as version 2.0. Winn Hardin, an AIA contributing editor, has posted a full explanation of the new annexes on the AIA Web site. www.machinevisiononline.org.

A nanoscale apparatus developed by JILA (a joint venture of the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] and the University of Colorado at Boulder) offers the potential for a 500-fold increase in the speed of scanning tunneling microscopes (STM) and may make it possible for scientists to watch atoms vibrate in high definition in real time. The device measures the "wiggling" of the beam by measuring the space between the beam and an electrically conducting point just a single atom wide, based on the speed of electrons “tunneling” across the gap.

NIST says that other methods may be more precise at measuring very fast motions of ultra-small devices, but the new technique can minimize unwanted random electronic “noise” as well as measure the random shaking of the beam caused by back-action or recoil. The beam’s undulations were measured with tens to hundreds of times greater precision than a typical STM result. This level of sensitivity is possible because the atomic point contact acts as an amplifier for the otherwise imperceptible factors, and the gold beam is tiny and floppy enough (100 nm thick, 5.6 mm long, and 220 nm wide) to respond to single electrons. www.nist.gov.

Dalsa has expanded its Genie family of GigE Vision-compliant digital cameras with three models in the compact Genie HM Series. The Genie-HM640, HM1024, and HM1400 capture image data at speeds to 295 frames/s in VGA resolution or 60 frames/s at 1400x1024-pixel resolution.

The Genie HM cameras have a high-speed sensor and can transmit data over standard Cat-5e and Cat-6 cables to distances of up to 100 m. The cameras are supported by Dalsa’s Sapera Essential machine-vision software that bundles image acquisition and control with image-processing tools. When a camera is connected to the system, the Genie Framework software facilitates application integration and setup by identifying the camera and communicating with the Sapera Essential environment. www.dalsa.com.