Camera Link frame grabber - 20 July 2011

National Instruments has released the PXIe-1435 Camera Link frame grabber, enabling engineers to integrate high-speed and high-resolution imaging into their PXI test systems.

The module acquires from all Camera Link camera configurations, including 10-tap extended-full, with up to 850 MBps throughput. Engineers can power cameras through Power over Camera Link (PoCL)-enabled cables, eliminating the need for additional wires in deployment environments. The frame grabber also offers 512 MB of DDR2 onboard acquisition memory for added reliability in transferring large images without fear of data overflow. Onboard digital I/O includes four bidirectional transistor-transistor logic (TTL), two opto-isolated inputs and one quadrature encoder for triggering and communicating inspection results with automation devices.

The frame grabber incorporates the synchronisation, timing, data streaming and processing capabilities of the PXI Express specification, and supports image processing on complementary field-programmable gate array (FPGA) boards to further boost system performance.

The high throughput and low latency of the Camera Link standard make the frame grabber well suited for line-scan image sensors, which engineers can use for surface inspection of large areas, including finding aesthetic and functional defects in solar panels and dead pixels in flat panel displays. The PXIe-1435 also works well in many industrial applications, such as fault analysis using a stop trigger to record images before and after an event on the factory floor, and medical device applications such as analysing intricacies in movement and recording stimulus response in objects from heart valves to eye corneas.

Engineers can program the new module using LabVIEW graphical development software and the NI Vision Development Module, a comprehensive library of imaging functions. They also can configure it using NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection software, a standalone package for fast development and simple maintenance. NI Vision software helps engineers take advantage of hundreds of imaging processing algorithms, make decisions based on multiple inspection results, customise user interfaces and communicate results using I/O and industrial communication protocols.

For more information contact National Instruments, 0800 203 199, sales@natinst.co.za, www.ni.com/southafrica