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High-speed and Cost Effective CMOS Sensors,
High-speed, Low Power Microprocessors, and FPGAs |
The imaging, and machine vision community is continually seeking high-performance stand-alone cameras and camera subsystems to meet their demanding real-world applications. FastVision, LLC. was started in 2002 by both framegrabber and camera industry veterans, including CEO Dr. Joseph Sgro and lead engineer, physicist Paul Stanton, who understand these requirements and have the goal of developing leading edge products that enable customers to work more efficiently and cost effectively.
 Click HERE to read CEO Sgro's article in Wikipedia, which provides a summary of his contributions in the fields of advanced mathematics and neurology, and how it led to the development of frame grabbers and, eventually, Smart Cameras.
Click HERE to read an interview with founder and CEO, Dr. Joseph Sgro in "PROFILES: Strategies in Leadership" Magazine. And click HERE to see a TV Interview with Dr. Sgro which features footage from deployed customer applications.
The September 2012 edition of Vision Systems Design (VSD) spotlights the newest product from FastVision in their Tech Trends section. Click HERE to read the full story from VSD's print and on-line magazine, headlined "DUV cameras target semiconductor inspection applications."
An excerpt from the article reads: "According to Joseph Sgro, PhD and CEO [of Alacron and FastVision], initial tests of this camera have shown a sensitivity 7-15 times greater than with a frontside-illuminated device at DUV wavelengths. The sensor can withstand thousands of pulses of 100× saturation energy level from a high-power laser over days with no measurable degradation in the sensor, the delta layer, or the antireflection coating. The FC-300 BSI version capable of 200 frames/sec will be shipped with a Full Camera Link interface later this year.
Realizing that semiconductor vendors require even higher speed, the company has also begun developing its second generation of DUV cameras that will employ a larger-format imager capable of 1000 frames/sec speed with readout speed of 8 Gpixels/sec. To read out data from the camera at these rates, the camera will employ industry-standard SNAP12 twelve-channel fiber interface transmitter modules."
The opportunity that the current market offers is the general availability of high-speed and cost effective CMOS sensors, high-speed, low-power microprocessors, and FPGAs. Using these technologies enables FastVision to develop market leading products for the high-speed accelerated or “smart” camera markets. These markets have traditionally been served by proprietary products that are expensive, have limited real-time compute capabilities, and have restricted storage disk or memory space.
The FastCamera Series of cameras and systems are the initial realizations of the concept of high-speed mega pixel digital camera systems, based on CMOS imagers. These cameras have a high-speed, scalable, integrated FPGA and memory subsystem which enables stand-alone high speed in-camera image processing. When integrated with a high powered framegrabber/coprocessor board, or a host subsystem, the resulting system capabilities can be expanded according to the compute needs of the user. In addition, this subsystem can be integrated with the newest disk technology to allow sustained real-time data acquisition to hard disk.
http://www.fast-vision.com
FastVision is at the forefront of the smart camera revolution. Anyone exploring the idea of machine vision or frame grabbers will find that we at FastVision have the latest in terms of technological innovation in this field.
What is a smart camera? A smart camera, which is sometimes also called an intelligent camera, is essentially a vision capture system that can also extract information relevant to its particular function. Our FastCamera series is the best of its kind when it comes to this technology being ready for real world applications.
FastVision was started by experts in the field of camera technology and framegrabbers in 2002. Dr. Joseph Sgro, a neurophysiologist, is our founder and CEO. His studies of the neurons firing in the human brain and the need to photograph them lead him down the path which resulted in FastVision. There has been steady progress in the technology since the early days.
Much as in the retail market, where the high speed digital camerahas been becoming more refined and less expensive, in the world of smart cameras also there has been a steady fine-tuning of technology with a parallel emphasis on cost-effectiveness. There is an increased availability of more affordable CMOS and CCD cameras and this is a direct result of the increased availability of high-speed, low-power microprocessors, and FPGAs. The smart camera market is no longer weighted down by expensive proprietary products and we at FastVision are building on the new developments by producing reasonably priced smart cameras at with real-time computing capabilities and greater storage disk and memory space.
Our FastCamera Series use CMOS and Kodak KAI interline CCD imagers and offer high-speed mega pixel digital images that are unprecedented in terms of quality. They offer high speed in-camera image processing and they can be integrated with a high-powered frame grabber or vision processor board or a host subsystem to expand their computing capabilities. Moreover, the subsystem can also be aligned with new developments in disk technology to enable real time data acquisition to hard disk.
The smart camera has application in varied industries. The military, medicine and quality inspection are some of areas where our products are used extensively. In each of these cases, the ability to have continuous visual imaging without having a direct human presence enables a great deal of efficiency while ensuring safety. For example, unmanned vehicles for collecting intelligence are very pertinent for military usage. Embedding smart camera in these unmanned vehicles makes for increased efficiency and better processing of the data that is collected. Our smart cameras have been used for the following purposes:
- Crash Testing
- Explosions
- Military Surveillance
- Intensified Recording of High-Speed Events
- Real-Time Inspection
- Machine Vision
- High-Speed Event Recording
- Rapid Process Recording
- Military Image Fusion
- OCR / ICR
- Document Processing
- Video Imaging
- Pattern Recognition
- Defect recognition
- Quality Control
If you are in the market for a smart camera, you can buy from FastVision with the confidence that you are buying a product that is being used by professionals at the cutting edge of this field. We offer different products to suit different budgets and usage patterns. Our products range in price from $1200 to $10,000. Our staff, which consists of highly qualified engineers and development professionals, will work with you to define your applications and to find the most cost-effective way of providing you a workable solution.
We are redefining the future of smart cameras and are steadily heading towards the time when there will be an absolute integration of computing and cameras. You can contact us today and start enjoying a bit of the future and join us in finding real world applications for innovative technology.
FastVision is not just a company selling a product but a group of innovators helping re-think what can be achieved with smart cameras. We are always happy to hear from potential partners who have interesting application possibilities. If you are like us and enjoy the thrill of the process as much as the final product, there is no better time than now to call FastVision. You can Quote Request right now at:
http://fast-vision.com/index.php?src=forms&ref=QuoteRequest&submenu=sales
You can also call us at 603-891-4317 or email us at sales@FastVision.com or support@FastVision.com
FastVision can be your partner in making the improbable a real possibility. You do not have to wait for the product to appear in the market – we can help you make it happen!
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