1. Achieving True Color Fidelity
The Foveon technology takes a very different approach to sensor design than any other company out there. A 3-layer CMOS technology captures red, green, and blue light simultaneously at all pixel locations across the entire sensor surface.
Is exact color measurement or analysis the core of your machine vision requirements?
Does the demosaicing process of single-chip Bayer color filter arrays cause unacceptable visual artefacts?
Are you looking for 2D imaging techniques producing absolute color accuracy?
We offer 2 Techniques capturing red, green, and blue light
simultaneously at each pixel location.
The other technique, using prism based 3-CCD imaging technology, is provided by our Condor³ RGB range. A specific R, G, and B value is captured for each pixel. In contrast with Bayer color cameras using interpolation routines, 3-CCD results in more accurate per-pixel color values. In addition, because there is no interpolation, 3-CCD images offer more precise spatial resolution, enabling more accurate edge detection.. 1
On the High-end of our color measurement solution spectrum we offer our Condor³ CIE 3- channel Beam Split Prism camera with X-Y-Z filtering. As there are different color spaces, the most desirable of these in the measuring of color is the L*a*b* color space due to the uniform distribution of colors, and because it is very close to human perception of color.
Condor1
Foveon
“Lab” is now more often used as an informal abbreviation for the L-a-b representation of what is often referred to as the CIE 1931 color space. 2
Condor3
RGB +
CIE

2. 2D Color Analysis Condor1 Foveon Condor3 RGB-692/ CIE-692 Artifacts
When exact color measurements on every pixel are the core of your machine vision requirements, our 3 Layer CMOS or 3 CCD cameras are what you need.
Foveon made history when it developed and patented the world’s first three-layer image capture technology, placing a stack of RGB pixels in each pixel location. As a result, Foveon sensors detect all three primary colors in every pixel location, producing images that are sharper and have significantly reduced image artifacts compared to competing image sensor technologies.
Similar benefits are attained using our prism technology based 3-CCD cameras capturing specific R, G, and B values for each pixel without any interpolation.
Bayer sensor
Foveon or 3-CCD
Color
Sensor
Foveon X3
3x Sony ICX692 (others possible)
Active area
1” CMOS
1/3” CCD x 3
RGB Prism / BS prism + 3 X-Y-Z filters‏
Pixel size
 7.8 x 7.8 μm
4.08 x 4.08 µm
Pixel clock
20 / 40 MHz
36 Mhz
Active pixels
14MP;
2688 x 1792 x 3 layers
2.8MP;
1280 x 720 x 3 sensors
Frame rate
5 FPS full resolution
38 FPS full resolution
Dynamic Range
>60 dB
>60dB
Bit depths
8 bit 3 channel, 12 bit 3 channel
8 bit 3 channel, 12 bit 3
channel
Video output
CL Base/ GigE / USB 3.0
Trigger modes
Internal and external source (on Camera Link and Hirose connectors)
Electronic shutter
Rolling shutter/ Global Reset
Global shutter
Bayer sensor
Foveon or 3-CCD
Sharpness
Bayer sensor
Foveon or 3-CCD