Resolutions still going up

It seems as though 8 megapixels is the new 5, if the latest product announcement from JAI is a sign of what’s to come. They’ve just launched a brace of new 8Mp cameras under the 800CL label, one monochrome and one color. These use the Kodak-08050 4 tap sensor to get as much as 17 frames per second.

Two points particularly of note:

1. JAI provide a link to Kodak’s specs for the sensor. It’s actually a 40 page book, so whatever your sensor question, you should find the answer in there somewhere.
2. The sensor might have 4 taps but JAI combine these and let you run with a single cable in base CameraLink mode. That should make connectivity less of a bugbear that it might have been.

I don’t have any information on pricing, but knowing that JAI pride themselves on quality, I doubt it’s much under $10k. But as Henry Royce (the engineer behind Rolls-Royce,) once said, “The quality remains long after the price is forgotten.”

Pixels by the bucket

How many pixels can you get in a bucket? Well if you buy the RMV 29050 camera from illunis the answer is twenty-nine million, approximately. They’re using the new 29Mp KAI-29050 sensor from Kodak, which while not the biggest on the market, certainly illustrates the trend towards ever higher resolution.

As you might expect, the frame rate is pretty low – 2fps in dual tap configuration – but that’s only to be expected. No word on pricing, though I’d guess at something in the region of $20,000. That’s a lot of money and a line scan camera might present a lower cost alternative, but it all boils down to the application.

I’m just scratching my head over what kind of application needs this camera – aerial reconnaissance perhaps?

High-speed and High-res – how Basler do it all (with a little help from Kodak)

Not so long ago Basler introduced the first of their “aviator” line of area (or matrix) cameras. This had a 1Mp sensor that delivered up to 120fps – an impressive performance, you’ll agree.

Now they’ve upped the ante by launching a 2Mp aviator that puts out either 62 or 67fps, depending on the sensor configuration (1920 x 1080 or 1600 x 1200.)

The secret to this speed is in the 4 tap sensor technology. Essentially, the CCD is divided into four regions, each of which outputs its own pixel data. That of course means that Basler had to find a way to balance the output of each quadrant so as to yield a single, edge-free image. If you’re curious about how they did it, follow this link to their newsletter article, “What is the Kodak 4-Tap Sensor Technology Used in aviator Cameras All About?”

More pixels are on the way!

I picked up an announcement from Kodak regarding a “new” 8.1 megapixel CCD sensor. (The KAI-08050 – datasheet opens as pdf.) With an array of 3296 x 2472 pixels, and a claimed speed of up to 16fps, it will fill the gap between widely available 5 Mp cameras and the hugely expensive 11 and 16 Mp units. The downside is that a pixel size of 5.5 microns makes this a pretty large slice of silicon: with an optical format of 4/3” I don’t expect to see it in too many ‘C-mount’ format camera bodies.

I anticipate that the first machine vision cameras with this sensor will appear before the end of 2009. They’ll use the CameraLink standard and will probably take an ‘F-mount’ lens. Expect pricing to be in the region of $9,000.

And yes, there is a color version.