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| Vision 2009  VISION 2009, the world's trade fair for machine vision and identification technologies, will again feature some great surprises this year when it opens its doors at the highly modern Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre from 3 to 5 November 2009. The trade fair will focus, in particular, on digital cameras. As predicted by many experts, Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) cameras are gaining wider acceptance on the market and are making a big impression through clever innovations. For example, engineers at Allied Vision Technologies have come up with something special: "With a record speed of up to 240 MB per second for the new Prosilica GX camera series, we have managed to make a technological breakthrough in the GigE sector", said Ingo Lewerendt, Director Product Management at Allied Technologies.The camera is equipped with two GigE ports which are configured as a so-called link aggregation group (LAG). This means that the two ports merge into one port with double the bandwidth and the PC recognises the camera as a single device. The camera is predestined for machine vision applications in which high frame rates are required, for example in high-resolution quality inspections of electronic components or in intelligent traffic systems (IST). Prosilica GX will make its debut at VISION 2009. MaxxVision GmbH will present the first GigE vision camera series from Sony at VISION 2009. "The four models are based on the GenICam Standard which simplifies the configuration complexity when connecting the camera", said Sayed Soliman, Managing Director of MaxxVision GmbH. The scope of supply includes resolutions up to 5 megapixels and refresh rates of up to 90 frames per second (fps). One of the models can also be used in the near infrared spectrum. "The cameras also ensure safe, loss-free data transmission thanks to a so-called 'packet resend mechanism' which prevents the loss of image data during data transmission", added Soliman. Baumer GmbH has also been very inventive, and will present GigE cameras at VISION 2009. These cameras can be used to directly control customer-specific LED illumination systems from the camera. In addition to a trigger port and a flash port, the cameras have been equipped with four additional outputs. All these outputs supply a user-defined, pulse-width modulated signal which can be adapted exactly to the particular lighting module. "This increases the flexibility of the machine vision systems and makes additional lighting controllers superfluous", emphasised Jens Klattenhoff, Market and Product Manager for Digital Imaging at Baumer GmbH. The 'MotionBLITZ EoSens mini', a high-speed storage camera from Mikrotron GmbH, comes up trumps when there is a need to save space and reduce lighting components and cost. Thanks to its extremely high light sensitivity of 2500 ASA monochrome and 2000 ASA colour RGB, it minimises the otherwise normal lighting components and cost, and is also extremely compact. According to the manufacturer, built-in fixed pattern noise (FPN) correction on a pixel-by-pixel basis corrects black level and dynamic deviation with the help of an internally stored reference image and produces exceedingly sharp and low-noise images. The selectable, non-linear dynamic transfer function delivers sharp image details even with extreme brightness and darkness differences. The camera therefore has an internal dynamic range of up to 90 dB. With a full image resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels, the frame rate is 506 fps. Gigabit Ethernet is integrated as an interface. JAI will present a highlight at VISION 2009, i.e. the newly developed high dynamic range (HDR) camera AD-081CL. This camera is regarded as unique because it incorporates two progressive scan CCD image sensors mounted on a custom-designed optical prism. The prism-based design enables the camera to simultaneously capture two channels of 30 fps video, with each channel having a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, and precise alignment to the same optical axis. Provision is made for two configurable CameraLink outputs as an interface, but the camera is also available with a GigE Vision interface. According to the manufacturer, this camera is especially suitable for inspection tasks where incident light or bright reflections are present, for example LED inspections or glass inspections. However, this camera also contains many other advantages which experts will be pleased to explain on the stand of JAI during VISION 2009. Visitors to VISION 2009 will be able to see immense advances both in two-dimensional cameras and line cameras. The latter cameras are becoming increasingly more light-sensitive and faster. STEMMER IMAGING will, for example, present the new compact and fully independent In-Sight 5604 vision system from Cognex at VISION 2009. This system extends the product family in the 5000 Series. "The line scan machine vision system combines industrially rugged In-Sight hardware and best-in-class vision tools with a 1024 pixel high-speed line scan imager. This eliminates the need for PC-based vision systems and separate line scan camera heads. The line scan sensor used for this vision system is much more light-sensitive than the imagers utilised in most cameras. With support for hardware and software encoders, the line camera system has the flexibility needed to solve the image acquisition challenges across a wide range of applications, for example fast moving discrete parts on a conveyor, cylindrical parts, large parts and continuous products such as tapes and plastic sheets." The machine vision specialist in-situ develops innovative application solutions in optical 3-D surface inspection. The company will present a new product called InSpectPro 3D at VISION 2009. This inspection system now also includes the third dimension during surface inspections. With the aid of the "shape from shading" technique perfected by in-situ, three-dimensional features such as embossings, folds and varnished surfaces can be inspected. According to Rainer Obergrussberger, Managing Director of in-situ GmbH, the advantage of the InSpectPro 3D system is that it is now also possible to detect defects and deviations which are normally not discernible in a two-dimensional image. Examples here include defects such as bubbles, occlusions, craters, paint runs, orange peel, pores, cracks and scratches. The Institute for Neuro- and Bioinformatics at the University of Lübeck will exhibit a future-oriented product during VISION 2009. As part of the EU-funded ARTTS Project, the researchers will present the latest generation of time-of-flight (TOF) cameras: they include the world's smallest TOF camera because it only measures 4x4x4 centimetres and no longer requires a separate power supply. This task is performed by the USB connector. TOF cameras not only supply information on both the appearance and three-dimensional shape of objects. They transmit infrared light and measure how long the light reflected by the object takes to return to the camera. A combination with a high-resolution HDTV colour sensor will also be presented at VISION this year. TOP cameras are used in the safety shut-off of industrial robots, but also to detect objects and people. The 22nd International Trade Fair for Machine Vision and Identification Technologies from 3 to 5 November 2009 will not only feature cameras, but also sensors, frame grabbers, LEDs and complete systems geared towards user-oriented problem solutions. These exhibits will include 3-D machine vision systems for the main group of customers, i.e. the mechanical engineering, car and electrical/electronic industries, as well as applications from the large number of non-industrial sectors. The trade fair managers are more than satisfied with the number of registrations received to date: "Around 250 exhibitors have already registered for VISION 2009, which is due to start in eleven weeks' time. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Exhibition News :: home page |