Line scan application

Have you noticed how everyone has a photovoltaics application story to tell right now? I suppose that’s a case of following the money: thanks to the interest in solar power the PV industry is seeing a surge in investment, and naturally enough, entrepreneurs the world over would like a piece of the pie.

This is good news because it brings a rich seam of vision applications to share with you, the most recent being “Vision system from i2S LineScan tackles thin film defect inspection.” *PV-tech.org, October 14, 2009.) (Actually, I suspect they wanted to detect the defects, rather than inspect them, but that’s just splitting hairs.

It’s an interesting enough story, although short on details – nothing on the lighting, for example – and I am a little surprised to read of “resolution can be as fine as 5 microns …” 5 microns is possible but it does demand excellent optics if diffraction problems are to be avoided.

But enough nit-picking. The press release did prompt me to take a look at the web site of i2S. I first became aware of this interesting French company when they presented a railroad track inspection system at one of the vision shows. At the time I was impressed by their ability to process images at high speed, and it appears that they haven’t let up on pushing the boundaries. If web inspection is your interest, take a look at what i2S can do.