Seeing Lens to Lens

I can show you the world shining, shivering and splendid through the lens of my camera...

Welcome back!!!!!

The similarity between my first date and the first day at Uniforce Sales was that both were strenuous. Lots to learn, everything I saw was absolutely new to me. I had used a Toshiba IEEE 1394 b camera as an undergraduate and therefore I knew its workings. On my first day at Uniforce Sales, Gary wanted me to get hands on experience with our lab equipments and asked me to play around with various cameras, frame grabbers, lenses and lighting. To be honest, I was astonished looking at various cameras, camera interfaces and frame grabbers. I must admit that I am a techno crack and I love developing new applications. I do get bored easily if I have nothing new to play with. Uniforce Sales through its clients has eliminated boredom in me by keeping me busy all the time...

Analogy between a human eye and a camera (click image to enlarge):

Classification of Cameras

Classification based on cameras:

• Line Scan Camera
• Area Scan Camera

Classification based on Sensors:

• CCD Cameras
• CMOS Cameras

Classification based on Camera-PC interface:

• Analog Camera (NTSC, PAL, RS-170, CCIR)
• USB Cameras 2.0
• IEEE 1394 a and b (Where a= 400 Mb/s and b= 800 Mb/s)
• Camera Link ( Base, Medium and Full)
• GigE

Next post will be a brief history of CCD cameras.

- Sudeep

Open House June 24, 2010

Yesterday was a great success with the open house. Ben and I went to the lunch meeting at the TEAM Christy offices where we met other tenants in our Fremont Business Park. When it was time to tour the office Ben called Sudeep to let him know we were coming over. Sudeep then recorded the group leaving the building and walking through the car park.

Sudeep had set up a Core DVR with CoreView software on a laptop as a security system demo. When the visitors arrived at the office he explained the three different stations he’d prepared. The first station inspected liquid levels in bottles and used a Matrox Iris smart camera, frame grabber and Matrox MIL software to pass or fail the bottles. The second station had an Imperx Bobcat camera mounted on a tripod looking down on various drugs for blob analysis determining which pills were intact and which were broken. The third station analyzed color images of pills to identify them.

Finally, the visitors were taken to the conference room where they were shown the “surveillance” video and Ben explained how this type of surveillance was useful in military applications and other settings. Ben also talked about the industries Uniforce Sales is involved in and showed the various components that make up a system – the lenses, cameras, frame grabbers, software and cables. verall a great success and we might do another tour for some of the other tenants who couldn’t make it at lunch time.

Here are some pictures from the open house:

 

Sudeep looking at broken pills.

Two camera systems for inspecting drugs.

Posters with sample images taken in imaging systems for analysis.

Imaging in Action!

We’re getting ready for our big open day on Thursday June 24 when our neighbors here at the Fremont Business Park at Christy Street will be invited to tour our new office. Sudeep’s been busy working on a demonstration for our fellow tenants.
In the demo area we’ll be showing a complete system that detects liquid levels in bottles to check that they have been filled correctly with a pass or fail result. Then in the conference room the Core will be running and recording images on a laptop and displaying the images.

The meeting is being organized by TEAM Christy to promote communication and networking between tenants.

- Parm

In Pursuit of Knowledge

Welcome to the Uniforce Sales and Engineering blog. On behalf of the entire crew at Uniforce Sales and Engineering, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you. My name is Sudeep and I am an Application and Sales Engineer.


When I was pursuing my Masters degree a few years ago, in one of our sensor labs, our group was given an industrial camera and asked to acquire images. We felt that our instructor was a "fool" for assigning us such a simple task of capturing images, but having absolutely no idea what an industrial camera actually was, we began searching for the "Click" button, thinking it was like an ordinary consumer camera. After rotating the camera in all directions, in search of the "Click" button, we finally realized that we were the "fools" and that the assignment required significant amounts of knowledge and skills of machine vision. This was the first time I came across an industrial machine vision system.

Many of us working in the field of image acquisition, processing, and recording may have little or no knowledge on this extensive topic. A few of us who have a significant amount of experience may not have knowledge about the new products that are available in the market today. My blog entries will mainly aim at imparting knowledge to novice as well as seasoned engineers.

Even though the basic architecture of image acquisition, processing, and recording has remained the same as its beginnings, various companies have been striving to obtain higher performance, higher speed, better resolution, lower noise, smaller form factor, better on board processing abilities, and easy operability. As a result, selecting a camera, frame grabber, lighting, and software has become a complicated chore.

In the following blog entries I would like to explain the different components that constitute an image acquisition and processing system. I have found that it is easier to learn engineering concepts if we relate them to a real world scenario or human body analogies. View an example of a very entertaining analogy from Jim Breuer as he explains the effects of mixing alcohol by linking it to a party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0AJPqKybs. Therefore, I would like to use human vision system to explain the concept of image acquisition and processing. Please feel free to give us your input by leaving comments or asking questions you would like to see answered or suggest a topic.

- Sudeep