Truncated text next to uEye XC camera and cable not yet plugged in

Automatically perfect images

Image by IDS technical author Heiko Seitz

Why can this camera be compared to a typical consumer webcam?

With the uEye XC, we have developed an industrial camera that has the typical features and advantages of a webcam without its disadvantages. Compared to the standard industrial cameras, we have reduced the camera to the essentials in order to reduce costs and to concentrate on the functionalities that make webcams so popular.

USB3 makes the camera quick and easy to use with just one cable. USB3 is widely available as a cost-effective standard interface and provides both power and sufficient performance to allow live transmission of high-resolution images. With its many in-camera auto-features for focus, gain, shutter speed, white balance, gamma and color, the camera produces perfect images every time without writing a line of code. This true plug'n play means that once plugged in, the camera works like typical webcams and is in no way inferior to them.

What are the advantages over a webcam for the consumer market?

In contrast to webcams for the consumer market, we build the uEye XC with industrial components. This allows us to ensure a long product life cycle by maintaining the availability of this camera model unchanged for many years. Furthermore, the lightweight yet strong die-cast metal housing guarantees high quality and robustness even under rough environmental conditions. This is also matched by the screwable USB connector, which specifically prevents interruptions even in applications with camera movements. As usual for an industrial camera, the uEye XC of course has a programmable software interface, which allows complete control and integration into your own software applications.

What kind of application is the uEye XC suitable for?

With its features, the camera can shine in any application where consumer webcams have previously been used to produce perfect images at low cost and with little effort, but where industrial quality is still an important requirement. With its Full HD and 4K image formats, as well as its many automatic image enhancements, the image data is optimised for the human eye rather than for machine vision and evaluation. And its light weight and compact dimensions make it easy to use anywhere.
The uEye XC can show its strengths in the following application examples:

  • In the robotics field, for example, on a robot arm (low weight, single-cable operation, autofocus)
  • Smart retail (Wide viewing angle, auto focus and 4K resolution)
  • In kiosk systems such as ATMs or ticket machines, or systems for fully automatic return of old cell phones (autofocus and 4K resolution, digital zoom, people detection)
  • Logistics and intralogistics applications such as autonomously moving transport carts (autofocus for constantly varying working distances)
  • In the medical field, e.g. for skin scans (macro lens accessories)
  • Outdoor applications such as people counting (auto brightness, autofocus)

The uEye XC has been around before. What is different about the new version?

Compared to the previous version, the new uEye XC is now Vision standard compliant on the software side and thus fully compatible with IDS peak. With the separation of the autofocus/sensor module and the now separate ISP, we are now able to build the camera completely with industry-standard components. The old version used a SoC from the consumer sector, which unfortunately did not have a long availability and offered us only few development possibilities. With the new hardware concept, we can guarantee our customers long-term availability and thus a longer product life cycle. And on the other hand, it also gives us greater flexibility in terms of the components used, allowing us, for example, to offer additional models with different sensors and resolutions. And what's more, the programmable ISP will enable us to equip the camera with additional on-camera functions in future updates, such as a JPEG encoder, face recognition or automatic pan & zoom people tracking.

Another clear advantage is that the new XC is now able to transmit the high-resolution 13MP image live at 25 fps, which was previously only possible at a reduced rate. Otherwise, the new camera reflects the proven advantages of the old model and is in no way inferior to it. The new model is a significantly improved version of our very popular uEye XC.