Many people new to machine vision often wonder:

“Aren’t industrial cameras just network ports? Why can’t they be connected to a switch arbitrarily?”

Actually, it’s not that I can’t take it.

But:

Industrial vision fears “instability” the most.

The office network is a bit slow, but in machine vision:

· Lose a frame

· A delay of a few milliseconds

· Occasional disconnections

All may lead to:

· Missed detection

· Misjudgment

· Robot grip deviation

· Production line shutdown

So, the first principle of many projects is:

Industrial camera → Direct connection to computer network card

Instead of:

Industrial camera → Switch → Industrial PC

The reason is actually very simple.

1The data volume from industrial cameras is too large.

A 5-million-pixel GigE camera already has a bandwidth that is very close to the gigabit network limit.

If you run into it again:

· Multiple cameras

· High frame rate

· Color image

A regular switch can easily fail under pressure.

Then the following will appear:

· Frame drop

· Stuttering

· Image tearing

2Switches can increase latency and jitter.

In many industrial vision applications, time is highly sensitive:

· Fly shot

· Encoder synchronization

· Online detection

· Robot-guided

Inside the switch will:

· Cache

· Line up

· Forward

The result is:

Latency is unstable.

There aren't any major issues with the office network.

But machine vision can sometimes make direct misjudgments.

Why do many engineers insist on “direct connection”?

Because it’s really stable.

Especially:

· High-speed line scan

· Multi-camera synchronization

· AI visual inspection

· High-frame-rate acquisition

Many mature projects are even:

One camera with one independent network card.

In the industrial field:

Stability is always more important than “looking high-end.”

At the end of the day, it boils down to one sentence.

Industrial machine vision doesn't mean switches can't be used.

But:

Ordinary network devices find it difficult to meet the real-time and stability requirements of industrial vision.

So many projects ultimately come back to:

Direct connection is the most stable.

Currently, many customers are doing:

· GigE industrial camera

· Camera Link

· CoaXPress

· 10 Gigabit Vision System

· Multi-camera synchronization

· High-speed acquisition solution

In the later stages, what really holds projects back is often not the algorithms themselves, but rather:

Data acquisition pipeline and hardware selection.

If you’ve been doing this recently:

· Industrial Camera Solution

· Acquisition Card Selection

· Multi-camera networking

· Industrial control computer with

· 10-gigabit network card

· Industrial switch

Or it has already appeared in the project:

· Frame drop

· Packet loss

· Delay

· Unstable