Q+A CENTER

With all of the buzz surrounding smart cameras, the frame grabber (and other dedicated image processing hardware) still holds a strong place in meeting the needs of more demanding image processing applications. A recent downward focus on price, while not generally positive for manufacturers, works to provide end users with a cost effective alternative to smart cameras (and digital solutions in general) in even the less demanding vision applications. Further, analog systems still represent 65 percent of all camera units sold in North America and there is a huge installed base of analog machine vision systems still to be maintained for years to come.

LFG low cost frame grabbers can capture from standard analog video sources and are available in PCI, cPCI, PCI Express, PMC and PC/104-Plus formats from Active Silicon (U.K.). A comprehensive software development kit is available, supporting 32-bit and 64-bit variants of Windows and Linux as well as VxWorks, QNX, Mac Os X and DOS. Also from Active Silicon: Phoenix digital frame grabbers offer LVDS, Camera Link (including PoCL) connectivity and are available in PCI, cPCI, PCI Express, PMC and PC/104-Plus formats. A comprehensive software development kit is available, supporting 32-bit and 64-bit variants of Windows and Linux as well as VxWorks, QNX, Mac Os X and DOS. www.active silicon.com

Alacron (Nashua, N.H.) introduces its newest family of high performance frame grabbers and vision processors-the FAST-X Series. The Fast-X PCI-X based frame grabber has one to six basic camera link inputs, FPGA, Stretch 5610 processor and four GigE interfaces. The FAST-Xe PCI Express has an additional option of an eight SATA interface for data storage. www.alacron.com

DALSA Corporation (Waterloo, ON) announced its new line of frame grabbers based on the PCI Express - the X64 Xcelera Series. Building on the field proven technology and performance of DALSA's X64 frame grabbers, the new Xcelera Series leverages the PCI Express (PCIe) platform to bring traditional image acquisition and processing technology to new levels of performance and flexibility. This unified and scalable platform currently supports high-performance Camera Link™ cameras, with future versions extending to multiple input, progressive scan analog and parallel LVDS digital cameras.

Designed with the requirements of machine vision OEMs in mind, the Xcelera Series will range from entry level frame grabbers, to high-performance image acquisition boards, to embedded vision processors. Addressing the emerging needs of bandwidth-hungry vision applications, DALSA's Xcelera Series is defining next generation frame grabber capabilities with the ability to deliver bandwidth of 1GB/sec over multiple-lane PCI Express implementations with room to grow.