About one year ago, Nerian Vision Technologies introduced the SP1 stereo
vision system, which is an innovative sensor solution for 3D depth
perception. The SP1 is an embedded system that connects to two
industrial cameras, which are placed at different viewing positions.
Similar to human vision, the SP1 is able to infer the depth of the 3D
scene, by comparing the images from both cameras.

This system is based on a programmable logic device, a so-called FPGA,
which provides the necessary processing power to perform all image
processing in real time. This hardware-based design lends itself to
massively parallel computations, which lead to a vast performance gain
when compared to software-based solutions.

Since its market launch in October 2015, Nerian has continued to enhance
this system, which has let to significant performance improvements.
These enhancements have been realized through firmware updates, which
means that they are also available to existing customers.

The most noticeable change to the SP1’s processing capabilities is the
support for increased image resolutions. At its market launch, the SP1
only supported a small image resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. By now,
this system is capable of processing images with a resolution of up to
1440 x 1440 pixels, and it can produce an equally sized depth map. This
is more than a sixfold increase compared to the original specifications.

Likewise, the measurement accuracy has also increased significantly. For
stereo vision, the measurement accuracy highly depends on the size of
the region that is searched for image correspondences, the so called
disparity range. Initially the SP1 supported a fixed ranger of 96
pixels. Since the most recent firmware update, the SP1 can now search a
range of up to 256 pixels, which more than doubles the depth resolution.

When configuring the image and depth resolution, the customer has a
choice between a fast processing rate or high resolution results. The
customer also has the choice of cameras, their positioning, and the
employed optics. This makes the SP1 one of the most flexible sensor
systems that can be applied to even the most dissimilar use cases.

Press Release By: Nerian Vision Technologies

—
Dr. Konstantin Schauwecker
Nerian Vision Technologies
Gotenstr. 9
70771 Leinfelden-Echterdingen
Germany

Phone: +49 711 2195 9414
https://nerian.com