Point Grey Research Grasshopper Technical Reference
Introduction
Revised 26-Nov-10
Copyright (c) 2010 Point Grey Research Inc.
10
1.3.2. Common CCD Artifacts
The following section describes issues typical of CCD sensors and possible solutions.
• Dead / Hot Pixels
It is possible for one or more pixels in the CCD sensor array to stop responding. This will
result in a situation where the pixel will always appear black (dead), or white (hot/stuck).
This is generally not an issue except in very rare cases.
• Bright Pixels
Cosmic rays have the ability to cause images to have artifacts which look like hot pixels
which are randomly distributed throughout the image. This is most apparent when th
camera is running at a high temperature or the gain is set to a high amount. It is
impossible to prevent cosmic rays from reaching the CCD.
• Vertical Smear
When a strong light source is shot on the camera, there may be a vertical smear above
and below the position of the actual light source. This is a byproduct of the interline
transfer system used to extract data from the CCD.
1.3.3. Dual Tap Sensor Information
The Grasshopper 50S5M/C and 03K2M/C models feature dual tap CCDs. This means that the
CCD has two outputs running simultaneously in order to provide a larger data rate, thus resulting
in a higher frame rate. However, the CCD is generally unable to provide the left and right halves
of the image at an equal intensity. Therefore in order to maintain image quality, the Grasshopper
has been calibrated to correct for imbalances between the left and right halves. However, there
may be situations where the boundary between the left and right halves of the images can be
seen, such as images with high gain values.
1.4. System Requirements
• Processor
Recommended – Intel Pentium
®
4 2.0 GHz or compatible processor
Minimum – Intel Pentium III 800 MHz or compatible processor
• Memory
Recommended – 2GB
Minimum - 256MB
• AGP video card with 64 MB video memory (128 MB recommended)
• Bus Configuration
Recommended – PCI Express (PCI-e card not included) or 64-bit PCI slot
Minimum – 32-bit standard PCI slot for the IEEE-1394 card
• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 (to compile and run example code)
To Next Page
Loading...
