Sick is introducing its high-speed 3D camera with high-quality color capability: the ColorRanger E. It is the newest member of Sick's 3D camera product line. The cameras are used as a component by manufacturers and vision integrators worldwide. They solve various inspection tasks by measuring shape, contrast, and surface defects, to ensure product quality and production reliability. The ColorRanger E expands the inspection possibilities further by also providing high-resolution RGB color at up to 3072 pixels per channel. With simultaneous 3D and color information at more than 11 kHz, multiple inspections can be performed in parallel at full production speed.

Improved Production Quality Using Both 3D Shape and Color
3D imaging is ideal where height, shape, or volume is of importance for the production process. However, to make a complete quality or grading decision, it is often necessary to also consider the color of the parts produced. This is, for instance, common in grading fruits and vegetables, shape and baking degree verification of baked goods, board grading in the wood industry, quality assurance of electronic assemblies, and fill level and color verification in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. By considering both 3D and color, more reliable inspections can be performed which improves product quality and reduces waste.

Reduced Solution Cost and System Size
ColorRanger combines the functionality of a 3D camera and a line-scan color camera. With Sick's proprietary MultiScan technology, the camera can be configured to provide several measurements at the same time, such as 3D shape, laser scatter, color, and monochrome, according to the exact need of each specific application. As a result, one ColorRanger can replace several other cameras, which reduces the system size as well as the cost for hardware, integration, and maintenance. In addition, since the different measurements come from the same camera system, it is easier to combine data for analysis.

Superb color Quality
ColorRanger delivers high-quality 3D and multi-linear color data, including RGB, near IR, and monochrome without IR content, on a Gigabit Ethernet communication interface. It has a separate row of pixels for each color, which give full color resolution at up to 3072 pixels per channel. The color quality is ensured by well separated color filters of high spectral response, on-chip white balancing, and spatially corrected color channels output. In addition, to eliminate interference from different light sources used for 3D and color imaging, there is a filter option for light source separation.