Point Grey Research Announces Addition of Five New Models to Grasshopper™ Family
The Grasshopper camera line now offers a total of 11 different monochrome and color models that are designed to address a wide variety of customer demands for high resolution, high frame rate, and/or high sensitivity. The five new models are based on three additions to the current line-up of CCD image sensors: the high sensitivity Sony® ICX414; the high resolution, yet cost effective, Sony ICX267; and the high speed Kodak® KAI-0340DM. With these new additions, the Point Grey Grasshopper truly gives users their choice of resolution (0.3MP to 5MP), frame rate (up to 200 FPS, VGA), sensitivity (square pixels up to 9.9 microns) and price (US$1,195 to $3,495).
"One of the primary design goals of the Grasshopper was to provide OEM's and integrators with a wide variety of sensor choices to meet their individual needs, while also providing a compact form factor aimed at easing system integration," said Vlad Tucakov, Director, Point Grey Research. "At the same time, Point Grey has always endeavoured to provide existing product users with a clear migration path toward our newer products. By adding support for the ICX267, ICX414 and KAI-0340 sensors, Scorpion and Dragonfly Express camera users can now take full advantage of the features and benefits that come with the Grasshopper, including the faster 1394b interface, on-camera frame buffer, and high speed 14-bit A/D converter."
New monochrome and color progressive scan CCD sensor options for the Grasshopper include the 0.3MP ICX414 1/2" CCD (large 9.9 micron square pixels, 648×488 at 74 FPS); the 1.4MP ICX267 1/2" CCD (cost effective, 1384×1032 at 21 FPS); and the 0.3MP KAI-0340DM 1/3" CCD (7.4 micron square pixels, 640×480 at 200 FPS). Like other members of the Grasshopper family, each model is available in a compact 44x29x58mm form factor with dual IEEE-1394b ports, general purpose I/O connector, and industry standard C-mount lens holder.
Key features of the Grasshopper camera include a frame buffer for image storage and retransmission, high-speed 14-bit analog-to-digital converter for data precision, memory channels for defining custom power-up settings, gamma and programmable LUT, and a data flash for non-volatile memory storage. Other standard features include multiple trigger and strobe modes, regions of interest and pixel binning, and in-field-updatable FPGA that controls all camera functions.
Like all Point Grey cameras, the Grasshopper complies with the IIDC DCAM v1.31 specification, which allows it to be used with many third-party software packages, such as those from Cognex®, Matrox®, MVTec™, and National Instruments®. Also included with every camera is the FlyCapture® SDK—a full software package for image acquisition and advanced camera control—and the FirePRO (formerly PGRPRO) driver, which enables users to grab images at full 800Mb/s transfer rates.
The following models are available now from Point Grey Research and its network of distributors:
GRAS-50S5M/C (5.0MP 2/3" ICX625 CCD, mono/color)
GRAS-20S4M/C (2.0MP 1/1.8" ICX274 CCD, mono/color)
GRAS-14S5M/C (1.4MP 2/3" ICX285 CCD, mono/color)
GRAS-14S3M/C (1.4MP 1/2" ICX267 CCD, mono/color)
GRAS-03S3M (0.3MP 1/2" ICX414 CCD, monochrome only)
GRAS-03K2M/C (0.3MP 1/3" KAI-0340 CCD, mono/color) – coming February 2008