Matrox Imaging - News & Events - Feature Stories Archives

High-end Imaging Moves to PCI

Demanding imaging and inspection applications will use the unprecedented power available with PC expansion boards

by Spiro Plagakis, Matrox Vice-President

Original article featured in Photonics Spectra, January 1996

The PC platform is not new to imaging; but it is beginning to offer enough power to make even the most PC-doubting developers take another look. Many OEMs and integrators, who previously relied on proprietary designs to meet their specifications, are turning to off-the-shelf PC tools. Other developers who built their previous generation on more expensive platforms, such as the VME bus, are seriously investigating making the move to the PCI bus.

So why is it that the PC looks so good now? Continual advances in PC technology have recently culminated in the PCI bus, processors such as the Pentium and mainstream 32-bit operating systems such as Windows 95 and Windows NT. These work in concert to make the current PC a powerhouse platform with a very reasonable price tag. And imaging boards have followed the same trends. PCI has enabled PC-based imaging technology to reach an unprecedented level of price/performance.

The first round of PCI hardware was the frame grabbers, first available in mid-1994, with prices now as low as sub $500. PCI grabbers broke the bottleneck between the powerful CPU and the peripheral. Now image data goes straight to the system RAM in real-time, giving the CPU immediate and optimal access to the information. Current CPU speeds coupled with the performance of 32-bit software makes host-based processing a cost-effective solution for many applications.

New Hardware Due

This year, the second round of new PCI imaging hardware will make its full impact on the market, as more and more imaging board vendors begin to ship their high-end PCI products. For example, later this year, Matrox will introduce a new high-end PCI imaging solution that combines acquisition/processing/display on a single board. PCI boards with on-board intelligence are a cost-effective alternative for meeting the requirements of even the most demanding real-time applications such as web inspection and medical imaging.

PCI board vendors have a tall order to fill to satisfy the requirements of real-time applications. First and foremost, they are power hungry. To match the processing demands, some new PCI hardware will use DSPs, custom ASICs or a combination of both. New DSPs, which have been designed specifically for processing data at video rates, are an attractive solution, not only because of their number-crunching ability, but because they are fully programmable - a flexible alternative to hard-wired horsepower.

Besides processing requirements, developers are looking for high resolution/high-rate acquisition; high resolution display with non-destructive overlay; and integrated solutions that require fewer slots. Facing stiff competition in their own vertical markets, developers also require faster time-to-market and will be looking for software tools that save them development time.

As they go shopping for their next-generation development tools OEMs and integrators expect higher performance and functionality - all at lower costs - which is exactly the promise of PCI solutions. 1996 should prove to be a pivotal year.

For more information, contact our Media Relations Team.