Teledyne DALSA - Linea ML

While standard monochrome and colour cameras record intensity and wavelength, the Linea ML is available as a polarisation camera that captures intensities of multiple polarisation states. This renders polarisation imaging much more sensitive. It enables acquisition of contrast-rich images to detect non-visible properties such as birefringence, stress, film thickness and surface roughness. Therefore it is particularly suited for objects that are difficult to distinguish otherwise. Costly and complex hardware solutions can be avoided by using a polarisation camera as part of a conventional imaging setup. The integration of polarisation imaging allows the improvement of the overall production reliability and quality of customers.

Linea ML comes with faster sensor architecture compared to other line scan cameras on the market, lower noise and consumes less power. Key advantages are high resolution tri-linear colour sensors at high line rates, a fibre optic interface, a smaller size, weight and power than previous generation cameras, subpixel spatial correction and parallax correction to achieve optimal synchronisation, independent start/stop exposure per line and simultaneous multi-lighting configuration.

The Linea ML's quad-linear CMOS sensor provides multispectral capability by capturing three native colors (red, green, blue) as well as a separate NIR channel. The unique feature of an additional NIR sensitive line allows for simultaneous feature detection in the visible and the NIR spectrum. Systems can be designed with a single camera instead of two dedicated sensors. Moreover, the whole sensor with all 4 lines (red, green, blue, NIR) requires only a single IR-corrected lens. This gives an excellent price-performance ratio while maintaining a wide selection of lensing options.

The multi AOI feature allows the creation up to 4 AOIs. This can be useful when inspecting several separated lanes of objects with a single camera, just by ignoring the image area between these lanes. Acquiring only the relevant image content means a reduction of data to process. This relieves the actual image processing stage and gives room for either faster computation or allows for less powerful hardware systems. Faster transferring also offers the possibility to use more economic cabling configurations.

Flat field correction (FFC) can be used to correct high intensity variations caused by either illumination or lensing. The device provides up to 4 regions within the pixel line to be specified for flat field correction. A well calibrated image improves and simplifies the image processing. It requires less complex image processing and therefore saves development time.