Today, many of those electronic and semiconductor manufacturers are buying turnkey systems for reticule and printed circuit board inspection that depend on customized hardware engines. The PC acts as a user interface and data controller, putting the inspection data into usable formats for spreadsheets and other product tracking packages. Camera developments are another driving force behind change in the machine vision market. Only last year, digital cameras had barely captured a few percent of the market. Although today some advanced image processing boards can obtain the same result, digital cameras remove one more integration worry from the plates of OEMs and end users.
Applications requiring high resolution images can take two approaches today.
Most high-end image processor boards are offering subpixel resolutions. Also, megapixel cameras with more than 1 million pixels have also seen a sharp price reduction from the tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago to a few thousand dollars today. Many machine vision cameras also offer electronic shuttering and camera controls built directly into the electronics and controllable by PC or other remote device. The trend of higher functionality at the camera head is likely to continue with the development and implementation of smart cameras. Communications and cabling between cameras and sensors, production line controllers and PCs could see some drastic changes with the advent of Firewire, or 1394.