Bestcomputer vision camera

Webcams just need to show you video! In turn the manufacturers are not concerned if the sensors inside the camera change every six months. Whether the sensitivity changes by 10% makes no difference when you are just video conferencing with Grandma.

If the answer to any of the above are YES, then a webcam will NOT work well or at all for your application. If the answers are NO, then by all means, you might be able to save money and just use a low-cost webcam. (You can stop reading here if you want, or continue for more details below).

Computer vision cameraapp

1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection.  With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!

Machinevision cameramanufacturers

Cailabs is a French deep-tech company founded in 2013. We shape laser light to allow more precise, qualitative, and more competitive laser processes to the industrial sector, and more specifically to OEM / integrators and laser manufacturers. Leveraging our expertise, we maximize the impact of our innovative beam shaping technology to provide our customers with beam-shapers prototypes and custom solutions.

Cameraforcomputer visionapplications

Webcams come with an integrated lens that is suitable for general viewing, and this lens is integrated with the camera and not changeable. Industrial machine vision cameras come with no lenses as not only do lenses come in a variety of focal lengths for different magnification, but also lenses coming in a variety of resolutions. Choosing a lens requires you to know the size of the sensor, your working distance, your field of view, and the pixel size. (See related educational blogs on lenses at end of this post)

Industrial machine vision cameras are made with image sensors that don’t go obsolete every 6 months, but rather companies hope for 10 year life spans. It makes a huge difference if you are doing a computer vision algorithm that you have 5 man years of software development and the sensor’s sensitivity changes by even 1%.

Webcams do NOT come with a SDK as they are made to show video only. They normally provide a universal video driver, and also an application for viewing video.

GigEVision camera

Computer vision camerasoftware

If you need industrial machine vision camera solutions with a solid SDK, long life cycles, at a low price, there several solutions to consider. Rolling shutter imagers are always lower price which are always a place to start along with USB2 interfaces. Read our previous blog HERE which outlines some specific models which are low cost. There is also a great new platform coming providing 5 Megapixel resolution with a rolling shutter imager, but with great performance for $280! Contact us for more details.

Webcams have rolling shutter sensors which mean they cannot acquire images of moving objects without ‘smearing’ them. Industrial machine vision cameras use sensors with global shutters providing the ability to freeze the image to produce non smeared images of moving objects.

Webcams only have an interface to the USB data, whereas industrial machine vision cameras have hardware and software inputs and outputs. These allow for exact timing for a trigger to take a picture and a strobe to illuminate the object.

Computer Vision Cameraprice

Industrial machine cameras come with a SDK programmable in C/C++/C#/etc. It allows you to programmatically control the camera for both data acquisition and control of the camera’s parameters. (Example HERE to show extensive support of various operating systems and download)

This is a question we get asked frequently: “Why should we pay $200 plus for your board level machine vision camera when we can just get a webcam for $69?”

Furthermore, the form factor of webcams change frequently as well. This doesn’t make a difference when it is just on your desk. It makes a huge difference when your camera and lens is fixtured in a machine that has 500 hours of CAD work to design, much less build. Moving the camera and lens 10cm might not be possible!

The CANUNDA technological building blocks we have developed enable quality, precision, speed and stability of processing for all types of laser source, whether single-mode or multimode for various applications. For examp

The Innovation Award Laser Technology is a European research prize awarded at 2-yearly intervals by the association Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute ELI.

Basically, there are just a few questions you need to answer to see if you should use a webcam for you machine vision application which are as follows: