IDS Imaging Development Systems Gpresented its new USB 3.0 uEye CP camera family at the Vision 2011. With its newest USB 3.0 camera, IDS will certainly set trends in the industrial camera market. More than 9 years of experience in the development and sale of USB cameras has consistently been implemented in the new camera family. The 29 x 29 x 29 mm small camera housing is not only compact, but due to its magnesium casing it is also lightweight and robust. The camera is perfectly suited for industrial applications, offering trigger, flash and pulse width modulation as well as two GPIOs (General Purpose I / O), which can also be converted into a serial interface (RS232). This allows triggering peripheral devices. Thanks to the micro USB 3.0 and Hirose connectors , the camera is also perfect for rough environments.

Outstanding Features

Additionally, the USB 3.0 uEye CP boasts a range of additional outstanding features: brightness corrections are realized by a comfortable 12-bit lookup table and hardware gamma. 12-bit color depth offers a by factor 16 increased level of detail compared to the usual 8 bit. Hardware based data preprocessing saves additional resources. At the Vision 2011 IDS was displaying an eight USB 3.0 uEye CP cameras demo system. All cameras were equipped with a 1.3 megapixel sensor and delivered 25 frames per second; resulting in a total data load of 250 MByte/s. This data was transferred via two hubs and one single USB 3.0 cable into the host PC without any losses. The CPU load was a mere 20 percent thanks to data preprocessing in the camera. The demo systems outlined that IDS USB 3.0 uEye CP cameras are the perfect solution for 3D or multi-camera systems. Of course, IDS' own proven software package for Windows and Linux with 32/64 bit drivers, demo programs and source code in C + +, C # and VB also supports the USB 3.0 eye CP camera family. Hence, mixed operation of USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and GigE cameras is a breeze.

Tenfold increased data rate

The new USB 3.0 interface, which is also called SuperSpeed USB, offers a advantage compared to common interfaces: A tenfold increased data rate up to 400 MByte/ s compared to USB 2.0's 40 MByte /s or 100 Mbytes /s for GigE. As USB 3.0 is also downward compatible the continued use of existing USB 2.0 systems is no issue. These features plus the extensive availability of the universal USB interface guarantees a long-term investment security. Three different sensors are currently available for the new USB 3.0 uEye camera family, ranging from VGA to 5 Megapixel. More sensors will follow in 2012. The camera is available from the end of the first quarter 2012.