National Instruments Expands Line of PCI Express Frame Grabbers; New NI PCIe-1430 Dual-Channel Board Acquires Images from Two Independent Camera Link Cameras

Business Wire, Nov 8, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas -- With the new National Instruments (Nasdaq:NATI) PCIe-1430 image acquisition board, engineers and scientists now can use a single board to acquire images from two independent base-configuration Camera Link cameras. Using PCI Express, the NI PCIe-1430 board can acquire images from two Camera Link cameras at speeds up to 255 MB/s and clock rates up to 85 MHz, the maximum defined by Camera Link.

"With the new NI PCIe-1430 frame grabber from National Instruments, our customers can acquire images from two high-resolution Sony Camera Link cameras at the same time," said Ilias Levis, product manager in the Visual Imaging Products division of Sony Electronics' Broadcast and Business Solutions Company. "PCI Express bandwidth ensures reliable frame transfer with both cameras operating at full resolution and maximum frame rate."

Traditionally, engineers and scientists performing multicamera inspections through a PCI bus with data rates more than 100 MB/s had to purchase multiple computers and multiple Camera Link frame grabbers. With the introduction of PCI Express and the NI PCIe-1430 image acquisition board, these engineers and scientists now can acquire high-speed data from two independent cameras through a standard PC bus. Unlike other dual-channel frame grabbers, the NI PCIe-1430 board can obtain information from cameras with different formats, resolutions, speeds and bit depths. Additionally, several NI PCIe-1430 boards can be used together in a single PC to acquire gigabytes of images per second.

The NI PCIe-1430 board is ideal for many machine vision and scientific imaging applications. For instance, engineers can use two cameras with one PC to inspect objects at different angles. Scientists also can reduce cost when acquiring high-resolution images by using the board with two lower-resolution cameras instead of one expensive high-resolution camera.

Each NI PCIe-1430 board includes two independent Camera Link connectors and one triggering line, which engineers and scientists can expand with the NI Camera Link I/O Extension Board to provide camera power and integrate additional triggers, isolated I/O and quadrature encode inputs.

The NI PCIe-1430 board is compatible with any base-configuration Camera Link camera and more than 150 supported cameras, listed at www.ni.com/camera. Engineers and scientists can configure their imaging applications with NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection or program them using the NI Vision Development Module with the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, C/C , Microsoft Visual Basic or Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. From a software perspective, the NI PCIe-1430 board behaves as two independent Camera Link frame grabbers, which makes migration from two frame grabber systems easy.

PCI Express is a high-performance, point-to-point serial interconnect that improves PCI performance by providing dedicated bus bandwidth. PCI Express features a layered model that offers backward compatibility with existing PCI applications at the operating system level. NI introduced the industry's first PCI Express image acquisition board, the NI PCIe-1429, last year.

About National Instruments

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation -- a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,600 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. In 2004, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries. For the past six years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.

Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling 512-683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.>

Pricing and Contact Information

NI PCIe-1430 image acquisition      11500 N Mopac Expwy, Austin, Texas
 board                               78759-3504
Priced from $1,695                  Tel: 800-258-7022
                                    Fax: 512-683-9300
Web: www.ni.com/vision              E-mail: info@ni.com

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