Frame grabbers are an essential component in many high-end machine vision systems. They play a critical role in the capture of high resolution, high quality images in a variety of settings.
If you’re looking for an industrial machine vision system, chances are you will need a frame grabber for your vision system. But what exactly is a frame grabber? And what are frame grabbers used for?
What is a Frame Grabber?
A frame grabber is a machine vision component that captures individual still frames from an analog or digital video stream. The captured still frames are typically in digital form and displayed or transmitted for analysis.
Frame grabbers often connect to PC systems directly through various standard interfaces, such as USB or Ethernet. Newer frame grabbers can capture multiple inputs at once, transform images and perform real-time compression, among many other capabilities.
What are Frame Grabbers Used For?
Frame grabbers are used in a wide variety of industries for different purposes, but one of their main uses is for capturing high-resolution images beyond what is capable without a frame grabber.
Smart cameras are capable of capture digital still images without the use of a frame grabber. When smart cameras became available, many thought it would mean the end of the frame grabber. But smart cameras can only capture still images effectively for low-end applications.
Frame grabbers are still the go-to solution for capturing high-resolution digital still images. This is becoming even truer as the megapixel resolution of cameras rapidly advances and the need for high quality image capture increases.
Essentially, frame grabbers capture still images where smart cameras cannot. They’re used in high-resolution, high-end applications to obtain the highest quality image capture.
Frame grabbers play an essential role in machine vision systems across the industrial sector. Many applications would not be possible without the use of frame grabbers.
If you need a frame grabber for your vision system, browse a list of high-end frame grabbers from Phase 1 Technology.