Machine vision comes in all shapes and sizes. There are lots of different image sensors and cameras that can be used with a PCI controller card. The type of vision controller that you need depends on the camera or image sensor that you will be using.

Vision Controller usually comes in one of two types: PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) or USB (Universal Serial Bus). PCI controllers are often used in imaging applications like machine vision because they can provide high image transfer speeds. This is important for applications that need to capture fast-moving images like quality control, inspection, tracking, and sorting. Your best bet is to buy a controller that has built-in frame grabber hardware.

This is especially important if you will be processing or transmitting multiple video images. The PCI-6023E Image Controller from Intes Microsystems has a built-in frame grabber and features both analog and digital I/O ports which can control up to two cameras.

The PCI controller card should also support the camera’s output resolution, frame rate, and image size. These specifications are typically listed in the camera’s manual or data sheet. If it doesn’t, you can contact a PCB Manufacturing company like FS Tech to build and assemble a custom card.

Some PCI controllers also require a separate power supply like the USB2Vision D/SUB 9-Pin to USB 2.0 Camera Link (Single Camera) from PIXCI®.

This camera link provides up to 12 MByte/s bandwidth and can simultaneously acquire full-resolution images from two cameras, each at up to 12 bits per color channel.

A PCI controller card needs to be able to communicate with the camera through a control language like Camera Link or PPI (Parallel Port Interface). These types of interfaces use simple commands and responses which you can learn in no time. If you need to connect your machine vision system to a computer through USB, then you’ll need a USB controller like the PS2-1U3-MLXPL by Imaging Source.

This is an industrial grade USB 2.0 frame grabber board with automatic image acquisition and frame synchronization control. It can be used with both Macintosh and Windows machines and also works with CUDA-capable NVIDIA graphics cards.

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There are also PCI and USB controllers that can be connected to a computer using FireWire (IEEE1394). The FW-7278 from IDS Imaging Development Systems falls into the latter category. It’s compatible with IEEE 1394a or 1394b, has a PCI interface for the host computer, and comes with a powerful 32-bit processor for image processing.

This controller can support up to four cameras simultaneously and has frame grabber PCI software included. It also includes OV511™ camera drivers for both Windows and Mac OS X so you can start capturing images right away.

Once you have the controller hardware all set up, you’ll need to install the software drivers before you can start getting images. This is usually pretty straightforward and just requires that your machine vision system be plugged into the computer through a USB or PCI connection. You may want to buy some extension cables for cameras on long runs because they tend not to provide enough distance between the camera and the controller card.

And don’t forget the power supply! A computer typically provides enough power to run a camera but low voltage cameras, like those that operate on PAL or NTSC, will require an external power source.

Some PCI vision controllers use the auxiliary port on your video card which is just fine for most applications. However, if you have multiple cameras to control, higher image quality requirements, or more demanding imaging applications then you should look for a PCI controller with an onboard processor like the PIXCI® A325 PCI Express Frame Grabber from B&H.

This controller card features onboard video memory and an embedded high-performance Xilinx FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) which can maximize image quality and performance. For example, it can take an image from a video camera and transfer the digitized results to the host computer through Ethernet.

Additionally, this controller card includes Camera Link software as well as SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory), which provides up to 1280 Mbytes of FIFO (First In First Out) buffering. You can also offload some of the image processing work from your main processor and leverage the dedicated target board processor to handle it.

Now that you know where to buy a PCI controller card, see how easy it is to add machine vision capabilities with USB2Vision D/SUB 9-Pin to USB 2.0 Camera Link (Single-Camera) kit by Imaging Source. This kit is compact and simple to set up, connects directly to your computer using a USB port, and supports resolutions of up to 12 megapixels at a full-frame rate (12 bits per color).

This is an industrial-grade USB 2.0 frame grabber board with automatic image acquisition and frame synchronization control. It can be used with both Macintosh and Windows machines and also works with CUDA-capable NVIDIA graphics cards.

There are also PCI and USB controllers that can be connected to a computer using FireWire (IEEE1394). The FW-7278 from IDS Imaging Development Systems falls into the latter category. It’s compatible with IEEE 1394a or 1394b, has a PCI interface for the host computer, and comes with a powerful 32-bit processor for image processing.