Point Grey has launched its Grasshopper Express GX-FW series of IEEE 1394b (FireWire-b) digital cameras.
The Grasshopper Express camera series is housed in the same compact housing as the original Grasshopper, but offers a host of new features and a new hardware architecture designed to accommodate a wide range of high speed quad-tap image sensors. The first available model, the GX-FW-10K3M-C, uses a monochrome version of the Kodak KAI-01050 1 Megapixel 1/2-inch CCD image sensor. The KAI-01050 sensor features broad dynamic range, low smear, and a 4-output readout architecture that allows the camera to generate 1,024 x 1,024 pixel images at up to 70fps.
Every Grasshopper Express camera is equipped with a 32MB frame buffer, 14-bit analogue-to-digital converter, and on-board temperature and power sensors to monitor camera status.
Like all Point Grey cameras, the GX-FW provides automatic control of most camera properties, such as gain, exposure, and white balance; user configuration sets for defining custom power-up settings; and customisable region of interest and binning modes. The Grasshopper Express complies with version 1.32 of the IIDC specification, which allows it to be used with many third-party software packages. Also included with every camera is the FlyCapture SDK, a full software library that provides a common control interface for all Point Grey cameras under both Windows and Linux.
