Image Acquisition System based on Synchronized High Resolution Gigabit Ethernet Cameras

Over the last few years, the huge rise in various computer vision applications can be observed. They are widely used in such areas like video surveillance, medical diagnostics, biometrics recognition, the automotive or military industries. Most of these solutions take advantage of high-resolution cameras in order to obtain high quality images. Surprisingly, little attention is paid in the literature to the practical implementation of off-the-shelf image acquisition systems. Most available solutions are composed of custom developed electronic devices which use specialized multi-core DSPs and / or FPGA technology. Therefore, in this paper the novel realization of the scalable and comprehensive image acquisition system based on synchronized high resolution Gigabit Ethernet cameras is presented. The proposed solution allows the connection of multiple cameras together with any number of external illumination modules. Selected devices can be synchronized with each other in user-defined configurations. Hence, designed solution can be easily integrated in both simple and complex applications. Authors describe in detail design and implementation processes of the proposed platform. The performance issues that can occur in such systems are presented and discussed. Obtained results are encouraging and useful for the development of similar solutions.