Princeton Instruments acquires MegaPlus, high resolution camera line, from Redlake MASD.

Trenton, New Jersey - Princeton Instruments (PI) has acquired the MegaPlus, high resolution camera, product line from Redlake MASD (both Redlake MASD and Princeton Instruments are Roper Industries’ sister companies). MegaPlus cameras lead the global market in high resolution imaging applications. Princeton Instruments is the market leader in scientific imaging and spectroscopy cameras and light measurement systems in conjunction with its Acton spectrograph and Acton optics brands.

Future developments in high resolution camera technology will benefit from PI’s vast experience in fully integrated, low noise cameras solutions. The MegaPlus move will also compliment Princeton Instruments’ range of OEM solutions. While Redlake’s MegaPlus personnel will be joining the Princeton Instrument’s team in New Jersey and at locations world-wide additional positions in engineering and technical support have also been created to ensure anticipated growth for the new organization’s portfolio of camera and instrument solutions are met.

“This is a very exciting development for Princeton Instruments and the MegaPlus brand”, commented John Knapton, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, “there are tremendous synergies and leverage between all of the products, sales channels, engineering and marketing in this new organization that will provide untold added value for both our customers and share holders.”

The new organization will trade under the world renowned name of Princeton Instruments while retaining the now famous product brand names of Acton Spectrographs, Acton Optics and MegaPlus.

Don Templeman, President of Princeton Instruments added; “our customers recognize Princeton Instruments for quality and innovation – as the clear leader in this market, with over 40 years experience in the photonics industry we will continue to ensure that MegaPlus [and the rest of our product portfolio] intrinsically matches the needs of our research and OEM customers”.

Princeton Instruments designs and manufactures high-performance camera, spectrograph and optics solutions for the scientific research, industrial imaging and OEM markets. Continuous innovation in R&D and manufacturing process, coupled with a customer driven paradigm ensures our customers are always at the forefront of technology and reliability while pushing their boundaries of discovery.

Glance January 2007

The market for machine vision and bio-medical imaging components is always changing; what has seemed to be a sensible route to market often needs to be re-evaluated.

Image Management Technologies was originally conceived almost seven years ago as a Manufacturer's Representative which would act as a direct sales force, targeting image processing OEM customers. This offers a lower cost of sales model, than the traditional distributor and provides key OEMs with a more direct communication channel to the sub-system manufacturer. At that time there were around 70 specialist machine builders who had based their systems around vision technology. In addition there were around another 500 customers (including Universities, research companies and other users) who bought the technology on a consistent if intermittent basis. The industry had a major exhibition (IPOT and Machine Vision in February) where everyone went to see what was new.

Over the past few years this has steadily changed. The number of large OEM customers has declined partly due to the reduction in the UK manufacturing base but also much lower cost components so that, while the volume purchased by the OEM has remained stable, the value has declined. This is driven by a move away from dedicated hardware (for example imaging boards from companies like Alacron and Datacube) to PC based processing and the decline in the framegrabber market with the acceptance of Firewire, USB2 and Gigabit Ethernet cameras, all of which use standard IT interfaces.

Vision show in Stuttgart

The Vision show in Stuttgart in Germany has grown from a similar size to IPOT to become the biggest machine vision show in the world and this is now where the majority of OEM customers go to see the latest innovations. In addition the use of machine vision techniques has expanded out of the industrial automation area into other markets like security and traffic control. These are where large amounts of machine vision components will be used in the future. However in terms of these total markets, imaging is just a small part of the total requirement. The organisations in these areas understand civil engineering, security, border/crowd flow management and running major IT projects; they do not employ vision engineers.

These changes have made us re-evaluate our business model. We want to keep the ability to act as the manufacturer's direct sales force into the key major OEM customers. In order for them to survive they need to reach the lowest possible manufacturing cost and additional margin in their supply chain is unacceptable. However we need to be able to provide a wider sales and integration solution for the new customers in applications like security and traffic management. We therefore have to increase our application engineering skills for these markets.

We need to find ways to reach these new customers. We have therefore decided not to exhibit at IPOT this year but to use the resources on targeting these different opportunities. We already know the key machine vision customers and we know that many of them may not be attending IPOT this year as they perceive little benefit. We need to re-profile our marketing activities to address the emerging markets which are not addressed by what is essentially a manufacturing technology show.

Vision Components

We also needed to look and see what products we should emphasise in the future. This has led to the difficult decision to drop Vision Components from our product range. Vision Components make excellent smart cameras for industrial automation, but their software platform requires a significant investment in C programming to realise an application. This is fine for a large OEM who can recover the development costs over a significant number of systems but it doesn't meet the more flexible needs of many of today's customers. In addition Vision Components have decided that they do not want to build cameras for security and traffic monitoring applications and we cannot afford the resources to support different hardware and software platforms for different markets. If you have a Vision Components requirement please email Jan-Erick Schmitt at Schmitt@vision-components.com.

Move to Matrix Vision

We have therefore decided to sell the mvBlueLYNX range of smart cameras from our existing supplier Matrix Vision; previously we had only sold their USB2 camera range. We will be issuing a product based newsletter in the near future which will go into more detail on the products we have available. If, in the meantime, you are looking for innovative, cost-effective solutions for any of the markets we address, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Installing MV-5xx Distribution Software under Windows XP SP2

Following are the exact steps that should be used to successfully accomplish the installation. Use caution, many of these selections are not the defaults.Install the MV-5xx distribution software

Device Driver Installation

1) Shutdown the computer, plug in the MV-5xx board, then power up the system.

2) When Windows encounters a newly installed hardware device such as an MV-5xx, the Found New Hardware Wizard pops up after the computer is booted. The first question is "Can Windows connect to Windows Update to search for software?" Answer "No, not this time." Then click on the “Next” button.

3) The Found New Hardware Wizard identifies the MV-5xx as a multimedia controller. It asks "What do you want the wizard to do?" Answer "Install from a list or specific location. (Advanced)" Then, click “Next.”

4) The Found New Hardware Wizard instructs you to "Please choose your search and installation options." Select the "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install." Click “Next.”

5) You are instructed to "Select a hardware type, then hit Next". Choose "Sound, video and game controllers." Click “Next.”

6) When you are asked to "Select the device driver you want for this hardware", click on "Have disk..."

7) In the "Install from Disk" dialog box, change to the directory or disk drive which contains the Distribution Software. Open "Dist."

8) In the "Dist" folder open "WinNT2K.”

9) Select "MV5W2K.INF" and click "Open." You will be returned to the "Install from Disk" dialog box. Click "OK."

10) The Wizard will identify this .INF file as for the "MuTech MV-5XX Frame Grabber." Select this and click "Next." Ignore the warning "This driver is not digitally signed." Click "Yes.”

11) You will get an "Update Driver Warning", reply "Yes."

12) You will get another warning that continuing the installation may impair or destabilize your system and that Microsoft recommends not continuing. Ignore this and reply "Continue Anyway."

13) Finally, the Wizard will indicate that it is done installing the driver, click "Finish."Distribution Software Installation

14) Go back to the "\Dist\WinNT2K" folder. Double click on SETUP.EXE.

15) You will see the welcome screen to the InstallShield Wizard, click "Next".

16) Read through the License Agreement. To install, you must agree by clicking "Yes."

17) The InstallShield Wizard describes what will be installed, then click "Next."

18) Choose where the software willbe installed or just use the default location and click "Next."

19) Use the "Typical" installation by clicking "Next."

20) Use the MuTech default by clicking "Next."

21) When the InstallShield Wizard tells you what files will be installed, click "Next."

22) The InstallShield Wizard will detect a read-only file named Mv5drive.sys in the Windows\System32\Drivers folder, click "Yes."

23) To actually use the MV-5xx, you must reboot which will happen when you accept the "Yes, I want to restart my computer now" by clicking "Finish."

Uninstall the MV-5xx distribution software

Remove the Distribution Software

1) On the Control Panel, select the Add or Remove Programs.

2) Find and select the MV-5XX Distribution and click "Change/Remove."

3) Click the “Remove” button in the InstallShield Wizard and click "Next." Then, click "OK" in the "Confirm File Deletion" window.

4) A "Shared File Deletion" box will appear warning about deleting mv5appnt.dll from \Windows\System32, respond "Yes." When the InstallShield Wizard reports that the maintenance is complete, click "Finished."

Remove the Device Driver

5) Right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties."

6) In "System Properties", select the Hardware Tab. Under the "Hardware" tab, click on "Device Manager."

7) When the "Device Manager" window opens, open the "Sound, video and game controllers" category.

8) Under "Sound, video and game controllers" find "MuTech MV-5XX Frame Grabber", right click then select "Uninstall."

9) You will arrive at the "Confirm Device Removal", respond "OK."

10) To actually remove the device driver from the system, you will need to reboot.

11) To totally remove traces of the MV-5xx, you should also examine all the OEMxx.inf files in Windows\inf to find which one(s) refer to the MV-5xx. When you find any, delete them along with the corresponding .PNF file with the same base name.

World’s First Cooled 11 Mega Pixel Camera for Machine Vision and Industrial Applications

Redlake launches EC11000, its newest addition to its acclaimed MegaPlus II line. It is an actively cooled, high resolution industrial camera designed for demanding applications such as industrial QA/QC, document imaging and physical and life sciences research. Based on the 4008x2672 format, 9µm pixel interline sensor, the camera is offered in both monochrome and color versions. The camera’s tethered head design isolates the primary electronics from the sensors cooling path for excellent reduction in dark noise.

The camera offers up to 4.63 frames per second (FPS) at full 11 mega pixel resolution and 12-bits per pixel. Using Peltier cooling, both dark noise and thermal drift are significantly reduced, making the camera the perfect solution for the most demanding scientific and industrial applications.

“The quality of the images from EC11000 is stunning. It is poised for definite success in the market as we have already seen tremendous response from the world’s leading flat panel manufacturing facilities" said Jay Kelbley, product manager at Redlake. It dramatically increases the quality and productivity of our customer's workflow.

The unique design of EC11000 enables maximized cooling of the sensor without a fan -opening up new opportunities for customers who would not have previously considered a cooled camera due to fan vibration. However, for applications requiring greater cooling, an optional fan is available.

The new EC11000 inherits well known features of the MegaPlus II line including dual data interface (CameraLink or Firewire), ability to operate up to 4 cameras from a single controller, online flat-field and gamma corrections. The system also lets you mix and match camera heads on a single controller for maximum flexibility.

The introduction of the EC11000 gives Redlake the most comprehensive high-end product range in the industry.

About Redlake:

For over 40 years Redlake (www.redlake.com) has led the world in providing camera based solutions for both slow motion and industrial inspection applications. Whether your imaging requirements involve vehicle impact testing, aerospace, range & ballistics, high speed motion analysis or machine vision, we have designed cameras to meet your needs. Our solutions are tailored to meet the highest demands of the industrial user and both the life and physical science research communities. Redlake’s investment in technological innovation is our commitment to your success.