The PL-B958U is a high performance 2.0 megapixel (1600 x 1200) color CCD camera designed for a broad range of industrial imaging applications. This camera is based on the Sony ICX274 progressive scan sensor with a 1/2” optical format. The USB 2.0 interface provides data and camera power over a single low cost cable for plug-and-play operation with the host computer. External triggering and 2 general-purpose outputs provide users the flexibility to synchronize the camera with their processes and illumination. This camera is well suited to machine vision applications which require excellent image quality such as automated inspection, PCB and semiconductor inspection, container inspection, food, beverage and lumber inspection, and manufacturing quality control.

PixeLINK’s PL-B958U is a rugged industrial vision camera with excellent image quality. The camera features a 2.0 Megapixel CCD sensor (1600 x 1200) at 15 fps. Factory calibrated Digital Pixel Correction and on-board Flat Field Correction (FFC) provides excellent image quality. Careful attention to the color balancing ensures accurate and vivid color reproduction. This camera incorporates the Sony ICX274 progressive scan CCD sensor which has a ½", optical format and a 4.4 um pixel pitch. The ILT CCD features high-speed electronic shuttering, low image lag and low smear making the cameras ideally suited to capturing crisp images of fast moving objects. High sensitivity, low dark current and excellent antiblooming further enhance image quality.

The camera has a user-selectable 8, 10, or 12-bit output. Access to external triggering and the 2 general-purpose outputs is supplied via the 9-pin micro D connector. Expensive frame grabbers and external power supplies are not required.

With the Software Developer’s Kit (SDK), PixeLINK supplies an extensive Application Programming Interface (API) and camera control Graphical User Interface (GUI) for fast and easy application development. This functionality includes several triggering and GPIO modes for quick and easy integration with strobed illumination and motion controllers. Included is an on-board user-programmable lookup table (LUT) applied in real time and non-volatile memory for camera configuration. Some of the other user controllable camera settings are: gain, offset, frame rate, auto exposure, gamma, color balance and saturation. All of these features, plus many more, are available in PixeLINK’s free demonstration GUI, PixeLINK Capture OEM located under the camera’s Downloads tab. The SDK also includes wrappers for National Instruments LabVIEW versions 7.1, 8.0 and 8.2.