Mikrotron-GmbH

Last updated
Mikrotron GmbH
IndustryHigh-speed camera solutions
Founded1976 in Eching, Germany
FoundersBernhard Mindermann and Andreas Stockhausen
Headquarters Unterschleißheim, Germany
San Diego, CA (USA)
ProductsHigh-Speed Recording Cameras, High-Speed Recording Systems, Machine Vision Cameras, Vision PCs and Services
Number of employees
35
Website www.mikrotron.de/en

Mikrotron GmbH develops, produces, distributes, and rents high-speed cameras, recording systems, software and image processing components. The company, based near Munich, Germany, employs about 35 people, and has 35 distributors operating in over 30 countries. [1]

Contents

History

Mikrotron Digital Microcomputer and Analog Technology GmbH was established by Bernhard Mindermann and Andreas Stockhausen, two Kontron AG employees, in 1976 in Eching, near Munich, Germany, and entered into the commercial registry on January 19, 1977, to develop microcomputer programs, devices and systems. [2] The Mikrotron name is derived from Kontron. In the 1980s, the company supplied data logging systems that can input data into other systems. [3] The company continued to grow [4] and evolve, as they developed customized electronic data logging systems. [5] The company began integrating machine vision into bonding machines in 1990, and integrated specialized video frame grabbers into high resolution cameras in the mid-1990s, as well as recording systems, consisting of a portable PC, external cameras, frame grabbers and software, which evolved into the company's current Long Time Recording Systems. [6] Mikrotron launched its first high-speed camera in 1997, which recorded at a rate of 400 fps with a resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels. These high-speed cameras were also integrated into the company's recording systems. In the late 2000s, the company's integrated FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) programming and custom frame grabbers within their cameras helped solve the latency problem with the GigE interface. [7] The company is ISO 9001:2008 certified (1/2014).

Products and applications

Mikrotron cameras capture images from 1.1 up to 25 MPixel resolution and frame rates from several hundred to more than 250,000 frames per second (fps). They are used for process optimization, [8] quality testing, [9] engineering [10] and motion analysis. [11] Mikrotron develops and designs all of the hard- and software that is used in its high-speed imaging products. Its own electronic manufacturing department produces the circuit boards using surface mount technology and assembles the cameras. The EoSens 25CXP, a 25 Mpixel CoaXPress camera, won the “Product of the Year” award from the electronics portal electroniknet.de. [12] In 2015, Mikrotron was awarded a Top Job Award for its exceptional leadership qualities. [13]

Related Research Articles

Frame rate is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and motion capture systems. In these contexts, frame rate may be used interchangeably with frame frequency and refresh rate, which are expressed in hertz. Additionally, in the context of computer graphics performance, FPS is the rate at which a system, particularly a GPU, is able to generate frames, and refresh rate is the frequency at which a display shows completed frames. In electronic camera specifications frame rate refers to the maximum possible rate frames could be captured, but in practice, other settings may reduce the actual frequency to a lower number than the frame rate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slow motion</span> Effect in film-making

Slow motion is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger in the early 20th century. This can be accomplished through the use of high-speed cameras and then playing the footage produced by such cameras at a normal rate like 30 fps, or in post production through the use of software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion capture</span> Process of recording the movement of objects or people

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The refresh rate, also known as vertical refresh rate or vertical scan rate in reference to terminology originating with the cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate, which describes how many images are stored or generated every second by the device driving the display. On CRT displays, higher refresh rates produce less flickering, thereby reducing eye strain. In other technologies such as liquid-crystal displays, the refresh rate affects only how often the image can potentially be updated.

A high-speed camera is a device capable of capturing moving images with exposures of less than 1/1,000 second or frame rates in excess of 250 fps. It is used for recording fast-moving objects as photographic images onto a storage medium. After recording, the images stored on the medium can be played back in slow motion. Early high-speed cameras used photographic film to record the high-speed events, but have been superseded by entirely electronic devices using an image sensor, recording, typically, over 1,000 fps onto DRAM, to be played back slowly to study the motion for scientific study of transient phenomena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital cinematography</span> Digital image capture for film

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">DIGIC</span> Digital camera processor

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spirit DataCine</span> Motion picture film scanner

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Sgro</span> American mathematician

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixel shift</span>

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References

  1. ↑ Ebert, Dr. Ing Peter (June 2015). "Chief Editor". InVISION. 3/2015: 32–33.
  2. ↑ "Mikrotron entered into Commercial Register". Eching (Germany) Trade Office. January 19, 1977.
  3. ↑ Roschmann, Karlheinz (1984). "Company Data Logging/Status and Trends in the Data Logging Offer". Fortschrittliche Betriebsführung und Industrial Engineering. 33 (5): 236–273.
  4. ↑ "Open Day: Mikrotron GmbH in the Freising Road Introduces Itself". No. 158. Munchner Merkur. 1987.
  5. ↑ "Not without problems - Experts deliver their opinion on data logging systems". Produktion. 44: 4. October 1988.
  6. ↑ Mindt, Joachim (March 15, 1996). "Easier is also an option - Image processing with frame grabber card". No. 3. Vogel Verlag und Druck GmbH & Co. KG. Elektrotechnik fur die Automatisierung.
  7. ↑ "Crisis Challenges Technical Trends". Elektronik. 35: 16–21. August 28, 2009.
  8. ↑ Hessel, Otto. "Battery Discharge". Vision Systems Design. Retrieved April 1, 2008.
  9. ↑ Blug, Andreas (May 24, 2013). "Inspecting rapidly moving surfaces for small defects using CNN cameras". In Remondino, Fabio; Shortis, Mark R.; Beyerer, Jürgen; Puente León, Fernando (eds.). Videometrics, Range Imaging, and Applications XII; and Automated Visual Inspection. Proceedings of the SPIE. Vol. 8791. pp. 87911D. Bibcode:2013SPIE.8791E..1DB. doi:10.1117/12.2020568. S2CID   110620921.
  10. ↑ Katsuki, Yugo (March 2, 2015). "High-speed Human / Robot Hand Interaction System". Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Extended Abstracts. pp. 117–118. doi:10.1145/2701973.2701984. ISBN   9781450333184. S2CID   26623904.
  11. ↑ Baird, Emily (May 2010). "Minimum viewing angle for visually guided ground speed control in bumblebees". The Journal of Experimental Biology. 213 (10): 1625–1632. doi:10.1242/jeb.038802. PMID   20435812.
  12. ↑ Stelzer, Gerhard. "Lererwahl: Produkte des Jahres 2015". Elektroniknet. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Top Job Award for Mikrotron". June 2015.
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