Monday, April 13, 2009

“You cannot be serious!”

Well that seems to have been the response to my Banner iVu - Cognex Checker 3G comparo. At least I know people read what I have to say, even if they don’t agree with me. So let me defend my position.

I accept the point that the rear-mounted screen on the iVu may be difficult to use in every installation, and I can hook up a laptop to the 3G, so that’s a point to Cognex. But while the laptop will help with initial setup, it’s not a permanent visual indication that the system is operating. If you’ve read my earlier posts about the Banner cameras you’ll know I’m a big believer in the value of seeing a live image while the system is running. That makes the Cognex quite a bit more expensive.

I also accept that the 3G can run at a really, really high frame rate, but I’m not convinced that that this compensates for a lack of pixels. In fact I don’t think anything compensates for a lack of pixels. When it comes to imaging, pixels are your raw data. You can’t add data that isn’t there; interpolation is just taking a guess at what might be present.

As I said previously, I do believe, (although this is based more on faith than any real facts,) that the Cognex algorithms are superior to those from Banner. If the 3G had the same resolution as the iVue, Cognex would be the clear winner, but it doesn’t and they’re not.

Come on Cognex. If you want to be the Champ you can’t just go around saying you’re the Champ; you’ve got to deliver a knockout blow. So give us a VGA 3G and I’ll call you the winner.

1 comment:

VCIGreg said...

This has clearly become an argument of ideology and not facts. The ideology behind Cognex's products is to deliver high end software algorithms in an open development environment at a competitive price, not the lowest price. Many other companies, who don't have the software development fortitude, have to rely on such gimmicks as a low quality high resolution sensor, low res display on the back of the camera and are stuck with a quirky programming method due to the limitations of their design. The CMOS sensor gives a low quality image, the display on the back is only 320 x 240, half that of the image, it does not have opto isolated polarity independent I/O or the ability to have more than one program in it and switch between them. They require a special cable to connect to a thumb drive, for what! There is no new technology here, a few old vision tools, a digital camera and a cheap display. Cognex is the only company to come out with anything new in the past 10 years with the self triggering vision sensor. They invented this category, give them some credit. As I said before it comes down to reducing overall risk at install.