High-speed image capture speeds automotive analysis
MARCH 8--Hindsight Imaging (Waterlooville, Hampshire, England) was recently called upon to develop a system for a major automobile manufacturer. Using a Redlake Megaplus ES1.0 camera from Edmund Industrial Optics (Barrington, NJ), the system captures images to host PC memory using a MuTech (Billerica, MA) MV-1500 frame-grabber board. The system's ES1 software enables the camera to be switched between continuous and controlled mode. In continuous mode, live images can be viewed in real time. In controlled mode, the brightness of the picture can be controlled by setting the exposure time using control outputs on the MV-1500 board. In triggered mode, the camera will respond to an external signal.
The camera takes a picture of a pulsed laser as it shines through a diesel spray. A standard Roper AIA connector interfaces the camera to the MV-1500 frame grabber in a Windows-based PC using an RS-422 interface. The ES1.0 camera can take two pictures at 5-μs intervals using ES1 Sequencer software, and a number of pictures can be recorded and played back frame-by-frame. For viewing live images, the camera's continuous mode can be set via the PC's serial communications port. This is useful for focusing the camera onto the target.
For more information, see Vision Systems Design, March 2002.