From moving products on a conveyor to inspection in a washdown area, camera selection begins with the conditions of the application. The Imaging Source's Visus family gives machine builders a compact GigE platform with a deliberate choice of sensor, shutter and housing.
A camera that produces a sharp image on a stationary test bench may face a very different challenge on a production line. Products move, inspection points are spread around a machine, and some cameras have to operate close to water, dust or cleaning processes. These conditions shape the choice of shutter, resolution, optics, triggering and enclosure as much as the headline megapixel count does. Choosing a camera well starts with the application, and the specification sheet comes second.
The standard Visus cameras bring these choices into a 29 × 29 × 44 mm housing with an RJ45 GigE interface. The range spans 3.1 to 19.7 MP and 6 to 36 frames per second, built around Sony and onsemi CMOS sensors, with colour and monochrome versions and both global- and rolling-shutter options. The cameras are designed for GigE Vision and GenICam workflows, and The Imaging Source supports development on Windows, Linux x86 and Linux ARM. What this means in practice is that Visus can sit as comfortably on a conventional industrial PC as on an embedded computing platform.
Motion or Detail: Matching the Sensor to the Task
Where a conveyor carries products past the camera, or a robot presents a part for inspection, a global shutter is often the better starting point. Every pixel captures the scene at the same instant.
This matters because a rolling shutter reads the image out line by line, and an object that moves during that readout can appear skewed. With a global shutter, the geometry in the image reflects the geometry of the part.
Within the Visus range, the 3.1 MP Sony IMX900 models reach up to 36 fps, while the 5 MP Sony IMX568 models reach up to 23 fps. Both are strong candidates for triggered presence checks, positioning and identification. The final choice still depends on the required field of view, exposure time and line speed, which together determine whether a given model can capture a clean image of each passing part.
Where the part is stationary and the aim is to resolve fine detail across a larger field of view, resolution matters more than speed. At the top of the range, the 19.7 MP onsemi AR2020 models deliver 5,120 × 3,840 pixels at up to 6 fps with a rolling shutter. This suits electronics, assembly and surface inspection, provided the part can be held still and the lens and lighting can resolve the feature of interest. More pixels alone do not guarantee that a defect becomes measurable, however. Field of view, pixel scale, optical sharpness and contrast have to be considered together, because the weakest of them sets the limit of what the system can reliably see.
Integration Across the Machine
Visus cameras provide trigger and I/O functions alongside a set of machine vision controls that includes region of interest, binning and colour adjustment. Rather than forcing every inspection to work from a full-frame, free-running image stream, these tools let engineers shape acquisition around the task. A region of interest can reduce the data transferred and raise the achievable frame rate, and binning can trade resolution for sensitivity where light is limited. The result is a camera that adapts to the inspection, so the inspection does not have to be redesigned around the camera.GigE connectivity also offers a practical route when the inspection head sits some distance from its host PC. Long cable runs are one of the interface's established strengths, although the final cable length, network load and achievable frame rate should always be validated against the actual system configuration.
Timing deserves particular attention in applications with several viewpoints. The Visus feature set includes IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol and GigE Vision Action Commands, which together can support coordinated acquisition across networked cameras. In a logistics cell, for example, synchronised views allow a package to be captured from several sides at the same point in its travel, so that a label, barcode or edge seen by one camera corresponds exactly to what the others see. The triggering method, network equipment and required timing tolerance should still be designed and tested as a single system, since coordination across cameras depends on the network as much as on the cameras themselves.
Visus IP67 for Exposed Locations
The Visus IP67 family extends the platform into installations exposed to dust and water. Its 43 × 43 × 34.5 mm housing uses M12 X-coded GigE with Power over Ethernet, together with an M8 connection for trigger, outputs and auxiliary power. The Imaging Source specifies IP6K6 and IP6K7 ingress protection under ISO 20653, covering powerful water jets, temporary immersion and maximum protection against solid particles.
The system is completed by matching S-Ultra M12 lenses, protective lens tubes and cables. The lens and tube must be selected to suit the sensor and are ordered separately. This is an important detail, because the protection of the complete assembly depends on compatible components being chosen and fitted correctly. The camera body alone does not make an installation IP67.
What emerges is a wider range of feasible camera positions. In food processing, agriculture, warehouse equipment and other exposed machinery, the most useful view is often the one closest to moisture or washdown. Moving the camera farther away makes optics and lighting harder, and adding a bulky enclosure complicates the machine design. A compact protected camera removes much of that compromise. Suitability for a particular cleaning chemical, temperature range or hygiene requirement should nonetheless be assessed separately.
Stock of the Visus standard and IP67 series is available through Scorpion Vision on short lead times, see the full range on our website www.scorpionvision.com.
Selecting a Visus Camera
The most reliable way to choose a camera is to begin with what the image must prove. Is the target moving? What is the smallest feature to be inspected, and over what field of view and working distance? How many views need to be coordinated, and what are the light levels, exposure times and environmental conditions? The answers to these questions narrow the choice of shutter, resolution, colour or monochrome sensor, lens and housing far more effectively than a comparison of headline specifications.
At Scorpion Vision, we help assess the whole imaging chain, including optics, lighting, connectivity and software integration, and identify which Visus model is worth testing for a given application. A camera is only ever one part of a vision system, and its value depends on how well it fits the process it serves. Tell us what you need to see, how quickly it moves and where the camera has to operate, and we can help turn those requirements into a system that performs consistently on the line.