Imaging and Video Equipment Reference Materials

Description: Before my wife and I know it, we're going to be empty-nesters, and that will mean a bit less pressure to get a good meal on the table every evening. I was thinking that maybe we'd start eating out ...

Description: I recently had a diagnostic ultrasound, and while I was laying there on the table looking at the fuzzy, grainy image, something occurred to me. And that something was that the image quality doesn't ...

Description: I'm not much of a baseball fan, but I do know that it's the most data-intensive sport, and has been recording just about everything that can be recorded for an awful long time. And now Major League ...

Description: Today's electronics consumers expect a flawless device right out of the box. Scratches, dents, smudges or other imperfections can damage your brand's reputation or result in costly returns. ...

Description: Are you facing a tough visual inspection challenge with your devices? Advanced vision solutions leverage photometry-based imaging systems to apply higher resolution, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ...

Description: One of the things that keeps life interesting at Critical Link is seeing how our customers are utilizing our system-on-modules in their products. While the MityDSP-L138+FPGA - part of our OMAP-L138 ...

Description: I saw a recent article in The New York Times in which Elon Musk (of Telsa fame) announced that by summer, his company would be bringing "autonomous technology" (i.e., the self-driving car) to market ...

Description: A while back now, I caught an episode of Inside Man on CNN. This is a show in which Morgan Spurlock goes behind the scenes to explore some topic from the inside out. (If the name sounds familiar, ...

Description: A recent article on TechCrunch caught my eye. As, I guess, it was intended to. The article was on the HoloLens, Microsoft's entry into the "facespace" space, which lands somewhere between what Oculus ...

Description: As more and more things are added to the Internet of Things (IoT), more and more gets written about it. With the embedded technology that Critical Link provides, we've been part of the IoT even before ...

Description: There are a lot of interesting applications for facial recognition software, but I have to say one of the most interesting (if not necessarily the most useful) is one that a Barcelona comedy club was ...

Description: At Critical Link, we have a lot of interest in vision technology. Our MityCAM and MityCCD cameras are a key part of our business. And I just, in general, like seeing new applications of vision ...

Description: Regular blog readers may recall that I have an interest in robotics. Among other posts, last March I wrote about office robots, and in May I had a post about robots that do the milking on dairy farms. ...

Description: One consideration is the type of device you're using to measure the material level. Bobs, guided wave radar, open air radar, and ultrasonic level sensors are commonly used devices. What they all have ...

Description: Because Critical Link does so much with vision systems, I'm always interested in camera applications. On a recent European trip, I noticed that they have a lot of traffic cameras on their highways. ...

Description: Between last week's post and this one, it's looking like December is starting out as Automotive Month here at Critical Link. This is really not surprising, as so many cool embedded and vision systems ...

Description: I was in New York City over Thanksgiving and while I was there, I couldn't help but notice the massive new LED screen in Times Square. Did I say massive? ...

Description: The other day, I happened across an article in Vision Systems Design on how CMOS imagers are trying to increase the dynamic range they support so that they can capture images under both day and night ...

Description: So while I'm always thinking about things related to vision, this week I'm really thinking about things related to vision. And while I was thinking about things related to vision, I was also catching ...

Description: With so much recent media focus on consumer technology - think iPhone 6 - and wearable technology - think Apple Watch - I sometimes have to bring my mind back down to earth to think about the types of ...

Description: A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about wearable technology. Shortly after the post appeared, I got an e-mail from a friend in Boston who wrote to me about her wearable tech: a pass for using the "T", ...

Description: Last month, on a trip to New Hampshire, I stopped at a state welcome center, and encountered a vision-based people counter. ...

Description: With the NFL regular season about the kick-off (literally), I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about some new technology which will be on the field, or at least on the sidelines, for the ...

Description: When it comes to image sensors, ON Semiconductor seems to be on a bit of an acquisition tear. (Acquisitions are nothing new for ON Semi, as you can see in this timeline.) In April, the company ...

Description: Although I'm not going to run out and buy one - I'm happy (appy?) enough with my LG G2 (I pitched my iPhone 5 two weeks ago) - like everyone else who loves technology, I was certainly curious about ...

Description: In a recent Atlantic Monthly, there was a brief, but interesting, article on batteries, in which journalist James Fallows asked Nobel-winning physicist Steven Chu and Yi Cui, who is a battery ...

Description: Even though I live in upstate New York, where there are plenty of dairy farms, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about where the milk on my cereal and the cream in my coffee comes from, other ...

Description: The World Cup, which this time around is coming to Brazil, will be underway by mid-June. Most of the buzz around it has been the question of whether Brazil will be ready. What's been getting less buzz ...

Description: Pet food manufacturers have many options for conveyers in their facilities, but not all solutions are optimal for this unique industry. Traditionally, bucket elevators have been used to transport pet ...

Description: Activated sludge systems have been a cornerstone of wastewater treatment for over 100 years. This biological process uses suspended growth microorganisms to break down and consume organics and remove ...

Description: Customers of today's consumer electronics devices expect a flawless product out of the box. Scratched, dented, and otherwise imperfect products can result in costly returns and warranty claims. Worse, ...

Description: An architecture for compute-intensive, custom machine vision ...

Description: The use of machine vision for robot guidance offers new industrial operations possibilities, but also creates complex safety design challenges. This is because it is applied to machinery that operates ...

Description: Advanced imaging solutions-such as scientific-grade imaging systems-offer the ability to inspect low-contrast regions in extreme detail for detection and classification of the subtlest variabilities ...

Description: Olympus offers a wide range of interchangeable optical adapters for the industrial videoscopes and fiberscopes, providing optimum focuses and directions for various applications and inspected objects. ...

Description: An industrial videoscope is an instrument that enables inspectors to look inside areas that are otherwise difficult to access, such as the combustion chamber of a jet engine. Videoscopes support ...

Description: To comply with internal procedures and ensure process integrity and quality, and/or comply with regulations and government mandates, flow meter users are often required to periodically validate and ...

Description: This paper reviews how GigE Vision video interfaces improve the usability, cost, and future scalability of medical imaging systems. ...

Description: This article looks at some of the popular trends in machine vision, including cloud-based and embedded processing. ...

Description: This paper looks at role video is playing in a growing range of military local situational analysis (LSA) applications to help improve surveillance and intelligence of possible threats while keeping ...

Description: This whitepaper examines the use of GigE Vision® interfaces in medical technology, highlights their unique advantages through application examples, and considers future developments in the medical ...

Description: This paper provides an overview on the constituent elements of latency, and provides latency test results for image transfer over a GigE Vision link. ...

Description: For many people, the enjoyment of chocolate brings zest to their lives. But it's not only taste that matters; it should also be a feast for the eyes too. The customer expects impeccable appearance ...

Description: Is visual appearance everything? Perhaps not everything, but it's certainly a decisive factor! The first impression of a product significantly influences the purchasing decision. Particularly when it ...

Description: Traditional machine vision systems are sufficient for many types of inspection tasks, but they aren't effective for high-precision, low-contrast, and challenging assembly verification tasks. When ...

Description: For high-precision, highly-detailed, complex, or low-contrast assembly inspection tasks, Radiant's INSPECT.assembly solution is more accurate than human vision, and offers the speed, consistency, and ...

Description: SpotterRF partnered with IndustrialENET and Phoenix Contact to improve the reliability of its newest compact surveillance radar system ...

Description: Since imaging processing tasks can consume major CPU resources in machine vision applications, increasing processing performance within size constraints is, accordingly, a common challenge for ...

Description: Automatic inspection by machine vision is leading to the dawn of the "smart factory", eliminating errors resulting from manual operations, as well as improving quality consistency, increasing ...

Description: Replacing human inspectors with imaging colorimeters is one way manufacturers can ensure improved, consistent quality in the displays leaving the factory. Imaging colorimeters replicate human visual ...

Description: In this paper, the dynamic deformation and rupture of thin metal plates subject to underwater shock wave loading are studied by using high-speed 3D digital image correlation (3D-DIC). An equivalent ...

Description: Clemson is ranked among the top 20 universities in the country in large part for its commitment to delivering 21st century education. Many factors reflect this commitment including the design and ...

Description: The objective of laser projection is to create a form of augmented reality to assist a human operator by using existing engineering data in the form of CAD files or 3D models and translate that data ...

Description: The RT-Platform Instruments (Vibration Sentry RT and Noise Sentry RT) now have software that can detect alarms and even send alarm-emails to recipients. This application note explains the ins and outs ...

Description: Holophane, a leader in lighting solutions since 1921, has implemented AMETEK Land's new Near Infrared Borescope (NIR-B) Glass, an enhanced thermal imager, at its plant in France and now is reaping ...

Description: As a leading systems integrator, IDI manufactures advanced automation solutions designed to solve a particular problem for each individual client. The company provides these high-performance, ...

Description: ATS Automation turns machine vision frustrations into product innovation. ...

Description: When a consumer products manufacturer faced increasing production demand and needed to repeat build an automation line only a few years old, they turned to ATS Automation. ...

Description: Process reliability in production machinery holds the key to maintaining a successful product supply pipeline--that proof-of-principle testing helps deliver. ...

Description: Solyndra manufactures tubular solar modules for rooftop installations. A copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film material is applied to the inside of a glass tube so that the module can ...

Description: Batch control systems are used as an economical and safe way of controlling the amount of product that flows through a system. ...

Description: Ratio control systems are used extensively throughout industry to optimize the relationship of the mixture between two flows in a processing plant. ...

Description: Therefore the Cylmate system is designed to provide real-time information required by electronically controlled engines in order to optimize the engine operation by closed loop control of the ...

Description: ATC990 Process Controller and UPR900 Process Indicator technical notes, applications and setup. ...

Description: The move to Oxy-fuels, the establishment of global standards governing emissions, and today's inadequate measurement processes are materially impacting the glass manufacturing industry. The glass ...

Description: Foxconn performs contract manufacturing of components for many renowned electronics companies, such as Chinese electronics company Xiaomi, a manufacturer of smart phones and digital cameras. During ...

Description: At LMI Technologies, solving complex problems in a simple way is the philosophy that guides our passion for developing leading edge 3D technologies. It is because of that guiding philosophy, we have ...

Description: Implementing 3D sensing is rapidly becoming an essential enabler to ensure quality and process control in many applications in factory automation -- delivering results that are impractical with ...

Description: Factory automation is a broad term representing the technology used in automating manufacturing processes to produce parts. These parts typically involve an assembly of numerous individual components ...

Description: Among the investigative techniques applied to art inspection and restoration, infrared imaging plays an important - and rapidly growing - role. By deploying appropriate sensors and cameras with high ...

Description: Food inspection based on sensors for the visual, shortwave infrared, UV and X-ray realms in connection with automated sorting and classification methods has become a major field of application for ...

Description: Accidents. Process upsets. Production downtime. Fire or gas leaks. These and other unexpected scenarios could hamper manufacturing, endanger workers, and threaten facilities and equipment. To help ...

Description: Methane is a greenhouse gas that is significantly more damaging than carbon dioxide. When it leaks uncontrolled from industrial plants, it can easily escape into the atmosphere. This is seen primarily ...

Description: Researchers at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center and at RiverD International B.V., Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have developed a novel, cutting-edge method of applying shortwave-infrared Raman ...

Description: To be reliably operated off-shore wind turbines need an assured downtime and maintenance pattern to keep costs low. A monitoring project carried out by the authors uses an infrared (LWIR) thermal ...

Description: Meeting compliance requirements for the FDA Unique Device Identification (UDI) rule is priority-one for today's medical device manufacturers and labelers. This whitepaper offers guidelines for ...

Description: The spectral bandpass of infrared radiometers using thermopile detectors are often controlled with a 6µm cut-on filter. These filters normally have a cut-on tolerance of +1µm and the ...

Description: All solid bodies that have temperatures above absolute zero (0 Kelvin, -273°C) emit electromagnetic waves. The thermal radiation portion of this energy is called infrared radiation. Wien's ...

Description: Dexter Research Center is a leader in the manufacture of stable, high quality, high output radiation sensing thermopile detectors with a linear dynamic range from the UV to long wave IR. Thermopile ...

Description: Non-contact inspection and measurement is essential in many areas, but it is also difficult to achieve with manual processes and human operators. In image processing, a camera system replaces ...

Description: "Units don't require any power other than what the signal can produce, just like analog meters." ...

Description: Successful data acquisition for barcode reading or part inspection depends on the ability of the data acquisition device, such as a barcode reader or machine vision camera, to function at peak ...

Description: Item identification and data acquisition through barcodes is critical to the function of automated operations, from assembling smart phones to recording patient data for laboratory samples. When ...

Description: A major medical component manufacturer needed to guide a robot to pick a randomly oriented needle from a conveyor. Needles are presented in batches on a conveyor belt. A single needle had to be ...

Description: The article gives us an indepth perspective on how the evolving communication landscape is improving Emergency Notifications. ...

Description: World's Largest LNG Facility Poses Unique Challenges for Public Address/General Alarm System ...

Description: Shortwave infrared imaging is finding new applications by improving spectroscopy, inspection, and more. ...

Description: At their facility in Shanghai, TRW Automotive completely automates their assembly line using Microscan smart cameras, barcode readers, and lighting equipment to guide robotics, detect quality issues, ...

Description: A comprehensive Del Monte quality initiative uses Microscan vision systems to ensure product code legibility, and improve labeling accuracy and overall traceability of its canned fruits and ...

Description: Research institute Friedrich Miescher Laboratory (FML) relies on an all-in-one solution using Microscan's C-mount Vision HAWK Smart Camera to accurately and efficiently read and ensure the presence of ...

Description: For industrial and automotive lubricant manufacturer Sinopec Group of Beijing, China, timely and accurate data collection using Microscan's Vision HAWK Smart Camera is central to maintaining process ...

Description: Some sensors, including the Kodak KAF series, offer an optional anti-blooming gate designed to bleed off overflow from a saturated pixel. Without this feature, a bright star which has saturated the ...

Description: The following data sheet is typical of that prepared by Apogee Imaging Systems for each of its imaging cameras. Some of the measurements here are done by design, and some are performed on each camera ...

Description: This is a CCD sensor level specification which describes the efficiency of charge transfer. The image from a CCD is read out by transfer of rows into a horizontal register, followed by transfer of ...

Description: Virtually all serious imaging systems employ this technique in various manners. Before the charge of each pixel is transferred to the output node of the CCD, the output node is reset to a reference ...

Description: Next to the quantum efficiency, resolution (number of bits) and noise figure, this is perhaps the most important CCD specification. Dark count refers to that property of all CCD sensors to generate ...

Description: Manufacturers will describe their system speed with this type of specification. There is no clear standard for how speed is specified and its use varies with each manufacturer. For example, a transfer ...

Description: Digitization, also referred to as analog to digital conversion, is the process by which charge from the CCD is translated into a binary form used by the computer. The term binary refers to the base 2 ...

Description: The dynamic range is often represented as a log ratio of well depth to the readout noise in decibels. For example, a system with a well depth of 85,000 electrons and a readout noise of 12 electrons ...

Description: The mechanism by which charge transfer from a CCD is performed lends itself to on-chip pixel binning. To quickly review charge transfer in a CCD, the following diagram is shown. As light (photons) ...