Point Grey, a world-leading designer and manufacturer of innovative, high-performance digital cameras, today announced the introduction of the Blackfly® USB3 Vision™ camera family, an extension to the existing compact and low-cost Blackfly GigE Vision® PoE product line.
Blackfly USB3 Vision camera
The first available Blackfly BFLY-U3-13S2 models are based on color and monochrome versions of the popular Sony ICX445, a 1/3" EXview HAD global shutter CCD featuring 3.75 micron square pixels and capable of 1288 x 964 resolution at 30 FPS. This combination of sensor format, resolution and frame rate have resulted in widespread adoption of this sensor in a variety of applications including 2D and 3D metrology, electronics and semiconductor inspection, microscopy, and automated license plate recognition.
The Blackfly measures just 29x29x30 mm in size and offers a host of unique features, including temperature, power, and status monitoring; a powerful image processing pipeline for color interpolation, look up table, and gamma; a 16 MByte frame buffer for retransmitting images; and USB3 Vision support. Like all Point Grey USB 3.0 cameras, the Blackfly uses a proprietary USB 3.0 link layer and frame buffer-based architecture for optimal performance and reliability, and comes with a 3-year warranty.
"With the introduction of the compact and low-cost Blackfly USB3 Vision camera line, we provide an easy interface transition to customers," says Michael Gibbons, Director of Sales and Marketing at Point Grey. "FireWire users will benefit from the widespread availability of USB 3.0 on today's PCs and laptops without having to install additional interface cards, while USB 2.0 users will achieve higher bandwidth and improved reliability. And analog camera users will be motivated by Blackfly's compact form factor and sensor options to make the move to digital."
The BFLY-U3-13S2M is list priced at $395/€299 and is available to order now from Point Grey, its network of distributors, and the online store (for North American, EU and Australian customers). Further Blackfly USB3 Vision models ranging from VGA to 5.0 MP are planned to be released throughout 2014.