Peering in to my crystal ball

Here’s a glimpse of what Gypsy Rose Brian foresees for 2010…

Whether for defect detection, gauging, part identification or 3D accuracy, buyers want higher resolution, but they also want reasonable frame rates. This creates a problem. Using CCD sensors, which most camera buyers prefer for image quality, there are some constraints on how fast the data can be shuffled off the silicon. However, CMOS sensors don’t have quite the same limitations.

This is why I’ll go out on a limb with my first prediction and forecast that CMOS-based cameras will see more growth in the higher resolution sensor segment of the market, (say 2 to 11 Mp) than will CCD-based cameras. Here’s my reasoning: frame rates of 3 to 5 fps are unacceptable in many applications, but we know we can achieve higher speeds by windowing or binning the image. CMOS sensors provide more opportunities to extract data from just a select region of the image, with commensurate speed increases. Thus the only way we users are going to get both the resolution and speed our applications demand is by switching to CMOS.