Industrial vision shifts to digital

摘要

Industrial vision systems have developed rapidly in recent years. The early 1990s saw the widespread adoption of progressive scan techniques, enabling manufacturers to produce cameras with dual outputs which could capture images at up to 100 frames per second. This move towards all-digital operation was followed by the industrial use of IEEE1394/1394a as an interconnection technology. Today, IEEE1394b, Camera Link and smart cameras constitute the next steps on the road to a digital world. The move towards IEEE1394b, for instance, will produce a leap forward in performance, as it offers faster data rates - 800Mbit/s, 1.6Gbit/s and a theoretical maximum of 3.2Gbit/s. This will allow users to implement systems with higher resolutions or faster frame rates, effectively to capture higher quality pictures. Higher data rates can also be used in association with the networking capabilities of IEEE1394b -several cameras can be placed on the same bus.