Who needs a high speed camera?

Baumer have just announced a 1.3Mp camera that delivers up to 500 full frames per second. That’s an incredible speed when you consider that most CCD cameras typically output no more than 30 fps full-frame. Of course, Baumer have to use a CMOS sensor to get that speed, which will no doubt cause some image-quality purists to turn up their noses at this offering.

Personally, I think CMOS sensors have quite a lot in their favor. They typically deliver more dynamic range than a CCD equivalent, and their architecture allows higher frame rates to be achieved by windowing down the image. In fact, Baumer claim it’s possible to get 120,000 fps out of the little HX. (Of course, you’re going to need a huge amount of light to actually see anything …)

So this begs the question: who needs that kind of frame rate?

Well some years ago I worked in a food packaging plant where the machines ran at 1,400 pieces per minute - that’s 23 pieces per second, if you don’t have a calculator handy – and I know that wasn’t particularly fast. So there’s one market – high speed packaging. Another might be printing. (For anyone curious, here’s a link to a web site with a video of some fairly high speed printing.)

Another application might be if you needed to track something in flight – powder falling from a hopper for example. Frame-to-frame analysis might allow tracking of particle flow, which could be useful in ensuring product consistency. In fact the real win might come from integrating this kind of movement tracking with a motion control system … well I’m just brainstorming here.

So what about you, dear reader? What applications could you imagine for very high frame rates? Let me know your thoughts.