(Thursday, July 10, 2003 ) - Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada—PixeLINK today announced the launch of their latest digital camera aimed at
the machine vision market. The new PL-A741
camera is a high-performance monochrome digital camera with global shutter and external
trigger. The PL-A741 does not require a frame
grabber and communicates with a host computer over a FireWire (IEEE-1394) interface.
The new PL-A741 camera is a high-performance
monochrome digital camera with global shutter and external trigger designed for
stop-motion frame-on-demand applications. The PL-A741
does not require a frame grabber and communicates with a host computer over a FireWire
(IEEE-1394) interface. The competitive price of the camera, compared to the cost of
typical machine vision camera/frame grabber combinations, will make this a very
competitive product. With no frame grabber to integrate, MV system integrators will find
that their overall system complexity is reduced, as is their time to market.
The PL-A741 uses a 2/3” CMOS sensor that
has a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels and can deliver image data at 27 frames per second
at full resolution. Smaller regions of interest have higher frame rates. The maximum frame
rate is 8000 frames per second for any area with 4096 pixels or less.
The camera has a full set of programmable features and is compatible with the IIDC V1.30
standard for FireWire cameras. In addition, the camera is fully supported by the PixeLINK
Software Developer’s Kit with an application programming interface compatible with
C++ and Visual Basic. PixeLINK will provide a Demonstration Application on their web site
that can be used to evaluate or configure the camera.
“The PixeLINK sales team is very excited about the launch of the PL-A741 camera,” says Kevin Cooper, VP of
Sales at PixeLINK. “The 1.3 megapixel resolution will appeal to a broad segment of
the Machine Vision market—specifically those customers wishing to upgrade from analog
to digital and at the same time improve upon the resolution. Having the ability to capture
in real time (30fps) at 1K x 1K resolution along with the global shutter are two must-have
requirements for this market.”
The PixeLINK PL-A741 provides on-board
field-programmable illumination corrections and a user-programmable look-up-table, both of
which are applied in real-time.
The PL-A741 is designed to work in an
industrial environment with harsh vibrations, temperatures and EMC interference. The
enclosure has mounting holes for flexible attachment to other equipment and the FireWire
connectors have locking tabs for more robust connections.
Typical applications that would benefit from the PL-A741
features include object detection, inspection, and recognition, testing, OCR and label
quality assurance, electronic assembly, semiconductor inspection, positioning, pick and
place robotics, photogrammetry, and security. With the extended dynamic range features of
the CMOS sensor, the PL-A741 is ideally
suited to applications with high contrast imaging requirements.
PixeLINK will demonstrate the PL-A741 at the
Vision 2003 trade show in Stuttgart, Germany in October 2003. The camera will be available
for shipping in early November and will enter full production in January 2004.
PixeLINK products provide the best price for performance in the scientific and industrial
market. The PL-A741 will have a list price of
$1795 US. Comparable CMOS machine vision cameras with similar features vary in price from
$1500 to $3500 US. The Developer’s Kit, which will include the camera, interface
card, cable, a trigger accessory and a spare Hirose connector, will retail for $2500 US.
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