New Products for November 2000

Color cameras pan and tilt
The CCD-based KX-DP700 camera series includes a 21X zoom capability and a signal-to-noise ratio of >49dB. Tilt and pan capabilities include 11 preset positions, a tilting angle of +15° to -87°, a panning angle of ±100°, and a maximum panning speed of 120°/s. The cameras also feature a focal length of 3.8 to 79.8 mm, a 51° horizontal field of view, and a vertical resolution of 350 (NTSC) or 420 (PAL) TV lines. Panasonic Industrial, Secaucus, NJ 07094; (973) 983-0202.

Camera uses digital sensor
The Shad-o-Box 1024 stand-alone camera consists of one or more 512 x 1024-pixel silicon photodiode-array sensors and a phosphor screen that converts incident x-rays to visible light. Analog signals from the imager are digitized to 12-bit resolution in two parallel A/D channels and then interleaved for data transmission across an RS-422 digital interface. Pixel-clock, line-enable, and frame-enable timing signals are available at the output connector to acquire image data with standard video frame grabbers. Targeted at digital radiology, the camera contains more than 1 million pixels with an active area of 49.2 sq mm. It uses a rare-earth scintillator in direct contact with a CMOS imager to detect x-ray radiation ranging from 10 to 160 keV. Radicon Imaging, Santa Clara, CA 95054; (408) 398-1716.

Graphical user interface gets unbundled
An unbundled graphical user interface (GUI) for the company's PC-based machine-vision-systems package, the EZVision provides users of the Cognex 8100 and the Imaging Technology PCVision boards with a predesigned GUI for the Windows NT environment. Features include point-and-click tools for parts inspection and location and integrated motion control tools for vision-guided applications. Cincinnati Industrial Automation, Covington, KY 41017; (859) 341-1141.

Display works with touchscreens
The fully enclosed XV10 series of flat-panel computers/monitors feature a 10.4-in. VGA active-matrix TFT display and an integral resistive touchscreen. Model XV10-C is built around a 333-MHz MMX Pentium processor with 64 Mbytes of synchronous DRAM, 100Base-T/10Base-T Ethernet connections, three serial ports, a parallel port, and a 4-Gbyte hard disk. The flat-panel-monitor version, Model XV10-M, and the XV10C flat-panel computer both measure 13.5 x 9.5 x 3.5 in. Panel-mount brackets and VESA standard mounting arms are available. Computer Dynamics, Greenville, SC 29615; (864) 627-8800.

Cameras focus on machine vision
The L100b camera features a linescan resolution of either 1k x 1 or 2k x 2 pixels and an operating frequency of 20 to 60 MHz. The A300 area-array camera series provide either a 640 x 480 or a 780 x 580 resolution at 50 frames/s. With an IEEE-1394 bus output, the A101 series of area-array cameras offer an output of 1300 x 1030-pixel resolution at a 12 frame/s rate. Basler Vision Technologies, Exton, PA 19341; (610) 280-0171.

Digital camera targets microscopy
Targeted at microscopy applications, the CoolSnap digital imaging system features a 1392 x 1040-pixel sensor with 4.65 µm² pixels. A 5-MHz digitizer provide several frames per second in focus mode while allowing binning and subregion definitions for custom acquisition. The system's camera, custom PCI card, and RS Image software transform microscopes that accept standard C-mount lenses into PC-based image-analysis workstations. Roper Scientific, Tucson, AZ 85706; (520) 889-9933.

Processor board features PowerPC
The GenesisPlus vision processor board uses the Motorola G4 PowerPC microprocessor with AltiVec technology running at 400-500 MHz. The G4 PowerPC processor combines a 32-bit superscalar RISC core with a 128-bit vector execution unit and works in conjunction with the Matrox-designed NOA coprocessor. The NOA is used for accelerating neighborhood operations including convolutions and binary/gray-scale morphology, and delivers 6.4 BOP/s, running at 50 MHz. The GenesisPlus is a full-size PCI board with one or two processing nodes that integrate into an existing Matrox Genesis image-processing system for image capture, processing, and display. Software support consists of the Matrox Imaging Library (MIL)/ActiveMIL, Matrox Genesis Native Library, and Matrox Genesis Developer's Toolkit. The GenesisPlus supports Windows 2000/NT 4.0 and QNX 4. Matrox Electronic Systems, Dorval, Quebec H9P 2T4, Canada; (514) 685-2630.

Illuminator aims at endoscopy
Consisting of a 229 x 250 x 97-mm metal casing that houses a 50-W bulb, control electronics, and cooling, the Solarc fiberoptic illuminator is powered by 100 to 240 Vac. It can project up to 1500 lumens of white light and offers a bulb lifetime of 2500 hours. Welch Allyn, Skaneateles Falls, NY 13153; (315) 685-4347.

Image-processing board supports
Channel Link To support the Channel Link interface standard, the FastImage1300 image-processing board uses National Semiconductor's DS90CR285 (transmitter) and DS90CR286 (receiver) chipset. Based on the Philips TriMedia1300 processor, it uses a very-long-instructional-word architecture capable of handling 667 to 720 MFLOPS and 833 to 900 MIPS peak per TM-1300 processor. A full-length board comes with up to four TriMedia processors, each with 8 to 16 Mbytes of 572-Mbytes/s SDRAM, and can provide over 2.6 to 3.6 GFLOPS. Alacron, Nashua, NH 03060; (603) 891-2750.