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Line Scan Camera

Line scan logic is similar to area scan, with the main difference being the dimension of the sensor. With area scan, pixels are arranged in arrays (typically from around 600 up to 8,000 pixels) and lines (typically from around 400 up to 6,000 pixels). Line scan cameras have only one (grayscale) or three (RGB) arrays of pixels with up to 16,000 pixels in total.

Area scan sensors capture an image by simply taking a snap of the object. The result is an image with a resolution equal to the number of all pixels, but with in-line scan logic, only one line of image is acquired at each snap. This means that the space allocated for the equipment can be smaller and the application more compact. The biggest advantage of this approach is that one image dimension is determined by the number of pixels in a sensor, and the other dimension is only limited by the time and frequency, buffer, or disk space available. For a given field of view (FOV) a line scan setup can provide a far superior spatial resolution.

We have extensive experience implementing line scan solutions on conveyor systems, mostly for inspecting catalytic honeycomb cells of various sizes.