Allied Vision Manta G-040 & G-158 provide great replacements to legacy CCD cameras

Allied Vision is expanding its line of Manta machine vision cameras, releasing the Manta G-158 and Manta G-040 GigE Vision cameras. Featuring the second generation Pregius CMOS image sensors from Sony. These are great replacements for Legacy Sony ICX424 and Sony ICX445 image sensors found in the Manta G-032 and Manta G-125 cameras.

The G-158 camera features the 1.58 megapixel Sony IMX273 image sensor, which has a 3.45 µm pixel size and achieves a frame rate of 75.3 fps. The Manta G-040 camera features the 0.4 megapixel Sony IMX287 image sensor, which has a 6.9 µm pixel size and achieves a frame rate of 286 fps. Higher frame rates can be achieved on both models in burst mode.

Allied Vision Manta Specifications and comparisons to older Sony CCD sensors as follows:

Allied Vision Manta features include:

Power over Ethernet options (PoE) with Trigger over Ethernet for single cable solutions
Angled Head and Board level variations allowing for custom OEM designs
Video-Iris lens control for challenging lighting conditions
Three look up tables (LUT)
Gige Vision compliant with support for popular third party image processing library’s including Cognex VisionPro, Mathworks, MATLAB and National Instruments

To Learn More about the Allied Vision Manta cameras

View more information on the G-158.
View more information on the G-040.

UPDATE: See this new video from Allied Vision (6/19/18)

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!

Additional References:

What are the attributes to consider when selecting a camera and its performance?

Need higher resolution? – Learn about Allied Vision’s high-resolution Prosilica GT now with 12, 16 and 25MP ON Semi PYTHON sensors

Visit our “Knowledge Base” to learn more about camera technology, machine vision lenses and lighting.

January 3, 2018February 20, 2023

How do I sort through all the new industrial camera image sensors to make a decision? Download the sensor cheat sheet!

The latest CMOS image sensor technology from Sony and ON-SEMI have continued to expand the industrial camera market. Sony has now reached its 3rd Generation Pregius sensors in addition to adding the low light performer, Starvis sensor. ON-SEMI has also continued with higher resolutions and has the next generation in the works.

Given all these new sensors, we are often asked, “What is the best image sensor and camera for my application”?

Although there are many considerations in general on selecting a camera (i.e Interface, Size, Color vs Mono etc), its best to start with the characteristics of image sensor and performance. Knowing the answers to questions relating to amount of available light, dynamic range requirements, wavelengths involved, and the type of application, the right sensor can start to be identified. From there, we can select a camera with the appropriate sensor fitting other requirements such as interface, frame rate, bit depths etc.

In order to help pick a sensor, its extremely important to have the image sensor data that can be found on the EMVA1288 data sheets. We have continued compiling this data into a “cheat sheet” along with required lens recommendations and comments how how some sensors relate to each other and older CCD sensors for your download.

The data shows us that not all industrial camera image sensors are created equally! Within the Sony Pregius sensors, there is 1st and 2nd Generation sensors both having unique characteristics. The 1st Generation provided great pixel well depth and dynamic range with 5.86um pixels. The 2nd generation came along with smaller 3.45um pixels, improved sensitivity and lower noise, but less well depth. The next generation will have the best of both worlds.. more to come on that front.

Using this data as an example, if we had an application with a “fixed” amount of light and wanted a relatively bright image (given a fixed aperture and just considering sensor characteristics), what sensor is best? Answer: We’d probably look at Model A with a smaller well depth as the pixel will start to saturate faster than Model C. Or possibly we have a very small amount of light? We’d start looking at absolute (abs) sensitivity which tells us the smaller # of photon’s, 1.1 in this case, starts to provide a useful signal.

Example comparisons:

Don’t let yourself get frustrated trying to figure this out on your own! 1st Vision’s engineers have combined experience in the machine vision and imaging market of over 100 years! Our team can help explain the various technical terms mentioned in this post and help in selecting the best image sensor and camera for an application.

Related Blog posts

What are the attributes to consider when selecting a camera and its performance?

IMX174 vs Starvis IMX290 – Battle of the 2 Megapixel Image sensors – Sony Pregius IMX174 vs Starvis IMX290

IMX174 vs CMOSIS CMV2000 – CMOS battle between 2MP Sony Pregius and CMOSIS

IMX250 vs ICX 625 – 5MP’s sensor battle between Sony’s older CCD vs new CMOS model

January 3, 2018March 2, 2023

What are global shutters and rolling shutters in machine vision cameras? How can we use lower cost rolling shutter cameras?

We often are asked the question, “What is the difference between a global and rolling shutter image sensor in machine vision cameras? ” Although they both take nice pictures, they are very different image sensors with pro’s and con’s of each. In the end, rolling shutter image sensors cost less, but are not always recommended for moving objects.

In this blog post, we will explain the differences between global and rolling shutter sensors used in machine vision cameras. Additionally, we highlight how to use a rolling shutter camera capable of “Global Reset” providing low cost solutions for some applications with moving objects.

First, let’s explain the differences between rolling shutter vs global shutter image sensors in machine vision cameras.

Global Shutter: Image sensors with a global shutter allow all of the pixels to accumulate a charge with the exposure starting and ending at the same time. At the end of the exposure time the charge is read out simultaneously. In turn, the image has no motion blur on moving objects. This is given the exposure is short enough to stop pixel blur which is a topic for another blog.

Rolling shutter: Image sensors with a rolling shutter do NOT expose all the pixels at the same time. Alternatively, they expose the pixels by row with each row having a different start and end time frame. The top row of the pixel array is the first to expose, reading out the pixel data followed by the 2nd, 3rd & 4th row and so on. Each of the rows start and end point have a delay as the sensor is fully read out. The result of this on moving objects is a skewed image

What are the Pro’s and Con’s of each type of shutter?

Global Shutter:
Pro: Freeze Frame images with no blur on moving objects.

Con: Global shutter sensors require more complicated circuit architecture, thus limiting the pixel density for a given physical size. In turn, sensors with a global shutter will have a larger image format driving up lens cost. The complicated circuits also drive up the overall camera cost and will be more expensive vs a rolling shutter sensor.

Rolling Shutter:
Pro: Rolling shutter sensors have a simpler design with smaller pixels, allowing higher resolution in a smaller image format allowing use of lower cost lenses. The simpler pixel design results in lower camera costs!.. For example, Dalsa’s 18MP Nano for < $600!

Con: Image distortion occurs due to the row by row integration and offset on moving objects. Smaller pixels may also require a higher quality lens which is commonly gauged by the lens Modular Transfer Function (MTF). This is really dependent upon your application and can be discussed with a sales engineer. In turn, there maybe a small trade off to consider.

Is there a way to use a lower cost rolling shutter camera on moving objects? Absolutely using a Global Reset mode found in various image sensors.

Using a rolling shutter capable of a “Global Reset” such as the AR1820HS found in the 18MP Teledyne Dalsa Nano C4900 camera will eliminate the image distortion.

A typical rolling shutter image sensor as described above exposes sensor rows separately with a delay as depicted below.

Using a rolling shutter with global reset mode, all rows start integrating at the same time as shown below eliminating the image distortion. It is highly recommended however to use a dedicated strobe and sync with the start of image acquisition. A gradient in the image brightness from top to bottom maybe seen if not with some pixel blur due to longer row exposure

A great camera to consider is the 18MP Teledyne Dalsa Nano C4900 camera. This camera features the ON-SEMI AR1820HS sensor with this capability. With a price point of < $600, this makes it one of the lowest cost cameras per pixel on the market.

1st Vision has over 100 years of combined experience and can help you with camera, lens and other peripheral recommendations. If you have questions regarding the various sensor shutters, please do not hesitate to contact us!

Be sure to read our related blog posts:

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

Demystifying Lens performance specifications – MTF

November 1, 2017October 6, 2021

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

Tag: CMOS