San Diego – Photron Limited of Tokyo, Japan, and its subsidiaries Photron USA Inc. and Photron Europe, a global high speed imaging system and image analysis software manufacturer, was honored by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers for their contribution to science and measurement. Photron’s innovative APX-RS high speed imager won the product excellence award by enabling technology in the study of particle image velocimetry (PIV), an optical method used to measure velocities and related properties in fluids.

The Society noted that Photron’s APX-RS high speed camera improved performance, offered superior results and advanced their understanding of an unsteady phenomenon in a turbulent, high-speed fluid, in the course of the research conducted at Kyushu University. The engineering award was based on technical invention, scientific discovery and technical penetration.

Andrew Bridges, director of sales and marketing of Photron Inc. notes, “Photron’s high speed cameras have received a lot of global attention in 2007. The APX-RS is the high speed camera used in BBC’s “Planet Earth” series, resulting in the critically-acclaimed “Shark Attack at Dawn” sequence. Our new Fastcam MH4 camera with four remote heads was hailed by UK-based Automotive Testing Technology International as the “Crash Test Innovation of the Year."

The APX-RS is a slow-motion video imager that captures up to 3000 frames per second (fps) at 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution, up to 10,000 fps at 512 x 512 and up to 250,000 fps at reduced resolution.