A number of data transfer hardware interfaces have been developed specifically for the machine vision sector over the years, including cameralink, GigE vision, USB3 vision, CoaXpress and Cameralink HS.
The choice of camera data interface is a vital consideration both in traditional PC-based machine vision systems and in the increasingly important area of embedded vision. Higher and higher resolution CMOS image sensors and increasing inspection speeds require large amounts of data to be transferred between the camera and processor. The bandwidth needed for the application and the image data transmission distance are critical requirements, although other factors such as triggering accuracy and latency in the system are also important. A number of data transfer hardware interfaces have been developed specifically for the machine vision sector over a number of years, including CameraLink, GigE Vision, USB3 Vision, CoaXPress and CameraLink HS (Table 1).
Table 1. Camera interface performance parameters
* Dependent on configuration and clock speed