Glossary
Machine vision, in plain English
The twenty terms that decide whether a camera works on your line — defined the way we would explain them on a scoping call.
- Industrial camera
- A camera engineered for automated imaging: deterministic trigger behaviour, stable frame rate, industrial connectors and long-life components. Unlike consumer cameras, it is specified by measured performance (noise, MTF, jitter) rather than marketing megapixels.
- Area scan camera
- A camera with a 2D sensor that captures a full frame per exposure — the default choice for presence, dimension and position inspection of stationary parts. Resolutions range from below 1 MP to over 150 MP.
- Line scan camera
- A camera with a 1D sensor that builds an image as the object moves past it — one line per exposure. Required for wide webs (paper, film, battery electrode), continuous processes and very high-resolution inspection of flat surfaces.
- TDI sensor
- Time Delay Integration: a line scan sensor that exposes the same object point multiple times as it passes, summing the charge synchronously. Sensitivity scales with the number of lines while noise stays low — the standard choice for wafer, panel and high-speed web inspection under tight light budgets.
- Global shutter
- All pixels are exposed simultaneously, so moving objects are captured without geometric distortion. Required whenever the part moves during exposure.
- Rolling shutter
- Pixels are exposed line by line. Cheaper and often more sensitive, but moving objects appear skewed (the "leaning-building" effect). Acceptable when the part is stationary during exposure or strobe-lit.
- GigE Vision
- A camera interface standard over Gigabit Ethernet: up to ~5 Gb/s per camera, long cable runs (up to 100 m) and easy multi-camera setups. The plant-floor default for most machine vision systems.
- USB3 Vision
- Camera standard over USB 3.0: ~5 Gb/s per camera with plug-and-play simplicity, but shorter cable runs (~5 m without extenders) and weaker multi-camera behaviour. Common in labs and single-camera stations.
- Camera Link
- A dedicated serial interface (~4–8 Gb/s) with very low, deterministic latency. Popular on high-speed lines that already use frame grabbers; requires a capture card per camera.
- CoaXPress
- A coax-based standard scaling from ~6 to 12.5 Gb/s per cable, with long runs and power-over-coax. The high end for very high-resolution, high-frame-rate cameras.
- GenICam
- The vendor-neutral programming interface standard for industrial cameras. A GenICam-compliant camera can be driven by generic software regardless of brand — which is exactly what makes multi-brand comparisons possible.
- MTF (Modulation Transfer Function)
- The engineering measure of sharpness: how much contrast a system (sensor + lens + lighting) preserves at each spatial frequency. Two cameras with identical resolution can differ sharply in MTF — one of the numbers we audit in factory test data.
- Field of view (FOV)
- The physical area the camera images, set by lens focal length and working distance. FOV and the smallest feature you must see together determine the required resolution — not the other way around.
- Working distance
- The distance from the lens to the object. It constrains lens choice, lighting geometry, depth of field and access — a common reason a "perfect on paper" camera cannot be installed.
- Telecentric lens
- A lens whose chief rays are parallel to the optical axis, so magnification does not change with object distance. The standard for dimensional metrology where perspective error would corrupt measurements.
- Machine vision lighting
- Illumination geometry chosen per defect type: backlight for silhouettes and dimensions, dark field for scratches and dents, bright field for presence, coaxial for flat surfaces, structured light for 3D. The single largest lever on image quality — and the most under-specified line item in most BOMs.
- Smart camera
- A self-contained unit with sensor, processor and vision software onboard — no separate PC. Best for single-station, single-task inspection where deployment speed matters more than flexibility.
- Frame grabber
- An acquisition card (PCIe or similar) that receives camera data — required for Camera Link and CoaXPress cameras, optional for GigE and USB3. Adds deterministic timing at the cost of a slot per camera.
- EMVA 1288
- The European Machine Vision Association standard for measuring camera and sensor performance (noise, sensitivity, linearity) with defined, comparable methods. When a datasheet cites EMVA 1288 data, the numbers mean the same thing across brands — and accredited third-party labs can verify them.
Speak fluent vision spec.
Bring your application in any of these terms — we will translate it into a shortlist you can act on.