Teledyne Dalsa TurboDrive 2.0 breaks past GigE limits now with 6 levels of compression

Teledyne Dalsa introduces TurboDrive 2.0 for their Genie Nanos

With the introduction of the Genie Nano came Turbodrive which allowed ‘faster GigE than GigE’ speeds. Turbodrive is a lossless hardware encoding scheme that potentially reduces the amount of data to be transmitted from the camera to the computer. Dalsa’s Nanos, which are priced identical to the competition, offers the users the ability to go faster at no extra cost. Note that the user can turn on or off the encoding.

However, the encoding scheme is data content dependent, and therefore if your data varies a lot within an image the compression is minimal. If your data varies a lot from image to image, then using the encoding means that only certain frames will get a speedup resulting in an inconsistent data transfer rate.

Teledyne Dalsa has just recently introduced TurboDrive 2.0, a firmware upgrade for all Nanos. The major enhancement is that now TurboDrive offers multiple levels of encoding. Level 0 is lossless, and each successive level has some potential lossy amount.

The table below indicates quality level, image compression ratio (absolute worst case scenario) and effective bandwidth gain

As you can see, at level 6, you have a worst case compression of 0.33, yet a speed up of 3. Note, this is a worst case situation so you might get a speed up of 3x, yet be at 0.8. The algorithm is data dependent! (more about this in the tech primer)

Depending on the application, various compression levels provide minimal degradation. The following images are shown for comparisons using the varying quality levels.

As you can see, even at level 4, there is very little degradation in the image. It is easy to imagine that with this image, you can still do your image processing yet get a speed up of 68%!

Level 0 “Lossless” to Level 6 indicate the quality level in the images.

Dalsa Nano Turbodrive quality level comparisons — Quality level comparisons

Learn more by clicking the icon below for the comprehensive application note!

Teledyne Dalsa Turbodrive application note — To learn more about Teledyne Dalsa TurboDrive 2.0, please download the application note for full details.

1stVision has a ton of resources to learn about TurboDrive technology in general. Please visit our dedicated Teledyne Dalsa Turbo Drive resource page HERE

Related Blog posts:

How do you get the most pixels for your money? Check out the new Dalsa Nano C4900 camera!

Teledyne Dalsa Nano XL-M4090 cameras – 16MP cameras are now faster, cheaper and smaller!

Teledyne Dalsa Nano XL-M5100 cameras providing 25MP resolution for < $6K!

September 27, 2017February 7, 2018

Allied Vision’s high-resolution Prosilica GT now with 12, 16 and 25MP ON Semi PYTHON sensors

Allied Vision extends its Prosilica GT Large Format camera platform with three high-resolution ON Semi PYTHON image sensors (Python 12K, Python 16K & Python 25K)

Combined with robust thermal housing designed to operate in extended temperature ranges and fluctuating lighting conditions, the new Prosilica GT Large Format cameras are ideal for high-definition imaging applications with demanding requirements of robustness and design-in flexibility. They provide a great option for high-quality imaging for anyone looking to switch over from existing CCD cameras to CMOS cameras with similar resolutions and optical formats.

Features include:

Extended temperature range (-20 deg. C to + 50 deg. C)
NIR sensitivity up to 1100nm
Modular concept providing various lens mounts (M58, M42, and EF-mount)
Fixed Pattern noise correction, Defect Pixel Correction, and Trigger over Ethernet.

Prosilica GT5120, Prosilica GT4096, and Prosilica GT4090 at a glance

See full specification for the series below:

Prosilica GT5120, 5120 x 5120, 25MP

Prosilica GT4096, 4096 x 4096, 16MP
This is a great replacement for the KAI-16000 CCD sensors!

Prosilica GT4090, 4096 x 3092, 12MP

Now that you have a great high resolution camera, what lens works best?

High resolution cameras with the ON Semi Python sensors are great, but only as good as the lenses you use! It is imperative to have the sensor sizes matched with the lens formats. Additionally, we need to make sure the lens resolution is adequate for the image sensor pixel size.

To aid in the lens selection, we have the following recommendation on lens series. Recommendations as follows

Prosilica GT5120, 5120 x 5120, 25MP: This camera has a 32.58mm diagonal image sensor, so a F-mount lens is required. Two options are Kowa and Schneider
KOWA – F mount series
Schneider – F mount series

Prosilica GT4096, 4096 x 4096, 16MP: This camera has a 26.06mm diagonal image sensor, also requiring a F-mount lens.
KOWA – F mount series
Schneider – F mount series

Prosilica GT4090, 4096 x 3092, 12MP : This camera has a 23.09mm diagonal image sensor which falls into a 4/3″ format.
KOWA 4/3″ lens series

As a note, as the pixel size is 4.5um, this is not as demanding on the lens resolution and will only require 111 line pairs/mm (lp/mm) making these adequate selections.

Need more help in understanding lens terminology and format sizes? Here are some related links

1stVision has experienced engineers to help you develop and further understand the best camera and lens combination for your application.

September 19, 2017April 26, 2019

Sony has a great new 1.1” Image Sensor, but what kind of lens can I use with this format? Computar MPY Series!

Computar MPY Series Lenses — Computar MPY lens series

If you have been around industrial camera lenses for a while, you know that there are many ½” and 2/3” lenses, not as many 1” lenses, but what do you do when you have a 1.1” sensor?! The solution? Use the Computar MPY 12 Megapixel lenses!

If you have been following Sony’s new IMX image sensor product line, their newest sensors are based on a 3.65um pixel pitch. However, when you scale this up to their new 12MP sensor (Sony Pregius IMX253, IMX304), the sensor size becomes 1.1” (17.6mm diagonal) format. A 1” lens format will not cover this image circle and in turn has vignetting in your image (Read our blog post on sensor size vs. lens size ) .

One possible solution is to use a 1” lens and vignette 5% on each side, or use a 1” lens and stop it down where the vignetting goes away. However this is not an optimal solution. A second solution is to use a F Mount lens, but if the camera is a C mount, you will need a C to F adapter, again less than ideal.

Fortunately there are some C mount lenses that are greater than a 1” image format. Kowa and Schneider both have been shipping 4/3” format lenses, although these are quite expensive. Recently, Computar has come out with a line of 1.1” format lenses SPECIFICALLY for this sensor!

Key Features of the 1.1″ format, Computar MPY 12MP C-mount lenses

Click here for full series specifications

Individual Specifications can be found via this link for the models below:

8mm – V0828-MPY
12mm – V1228-MPY
16mm – V1628-MPY
25mm – V2528-MPY
35mm – V3528-MPY
50mm – V5028-MPY

1st Vision’s sales engineers specialize in industrial imaging and can help you in the lens selection. Additionally, they can help ensure you have the best lens mated to the newer sensors to ensure the highest contrast.

August 30, 2017April 21, 2023

What is a lens optical format? Can I use any machine vision camera with any format? NOT!

Common lens questions we are often asked are, “What is a lens’s optical format (or size; we will use the two interchangeably) and how does it relate to specific image sensor sizes in industrial cameras? Along with, “Can any size machine vision camera be used on any lens format or do they need to be matched exactly?”

First lets review the sizes of the machine vision camera image sensors themselves (as seen below).

Lens Optical format — Image sensor sizes given in ” vs. true diagonal size in mm

The image sensor size is typically put in terms of “inches”, but really has nothing to do with this and dates back to the “image tube” days. Without a big history lesson, a sensor that fit into an image tube with a 1” (inch) yoke was deemed a 1” image format . Today, we still use these terms and see commons sizes stated as 1/3”, ½”, 2/3” as seen in the image above. Note: The image size in ” does NOT calculate to mm and vice versa! It is nomenclature only.

However, what is important is to look at the diagonal across the given image sensor which is the “image circle”. (i.e The 1/3” format above has a diagonal of 6 mm. )

The size of the lens MUST be equal or greater than the size of the sensor ( circle size that covers the sensor) or you simply will not get the whole image!

Lens optical format vs sensor size — Lens optical format (circle) vs sensor size (rectangle)

The diagram above shows a 1/3″ format image sensor (6mm diagonal). In order to adequately cover the image sensor, you need a 1/3″ lens format or larger. On the left, we show a lens with a 1/4″ format, and it does not cover the sensor.

The end results from the improper mating of a smaller lens format than the image sensor format will be vignetting (dark corners where the lens does not cover the sensor) of the image.

What can I do when there is no specific lens format matching the image sensor format?

Lens manufacturers are continuing to design lenses to address the changing sensor market. However you will not always find a specific size format to match the lens. In these cases, you just need to ensure the lens format (image circle diameter) is larger than the sensor as mentioned in the above example.

An example is the newer 1/1.2” sensor sizes (IMX174, IMX249 ) which have a diagonal of 13.4mm. Although there are some lens manufacturers that designed a lens with the specific 1/1.2” format, there are not many. Referring to lens format diagram, the 1/1.2” format is between a 2/3” and 1” format. The 2/3” format has a image circle of 11 mm which will not fully cover the 1/1.2” format (13.4mm diagonal), and you will get vignetting of the image. The solution is to use the next size up which is a 1” format. This format is commonly found in many lens manufacturers, in turn providing many lens manufacturers to choose from.

Click here now for all lens sizes and manufacturers

In conclusion, you can use an image format on a lens on smaller image sensor size, but not the other way!.. You’ll have vignetting and lose part of your image!

What else do we need to consider in lens selection?

This blog post simply covers sensor formats vs sensor sizes. There is much more to consider in a lens selection such as resolution of the lens to resolve the pixels themselves, what focal length is needed etc.

Here are some further resources to help in the selection process. Additionally, 1^st Vision has over 100 years of combined experience in industrial imaging in which you can contact us to aid in the section.

How to choose a lens –

Calculating resolution for a machine vision application – https://www.1stvision.com/machine-vision-solutions/2015/07/imaging-basics-calculating-resolution.html

Video Tutorial – Using the On-line lens focal length calculator https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=baF4lwl0LwM

1^st Vision newly added our high quality 1” format lenses which provide an excellent price vs performance ratio – Read more here.

Images courtesy of Wikipedia