As of Imatest 5.0, Imatest Master now features image acquisition capabilities. Previously, image acquisition capabilities were supported by Imatest IS, which has been discontinued as a separate product. This provides all of our customers with access to the acquisition library. The library supports direct acquisition from a wide range of frame grabbers and cameras, as well as industry standard interfaces. Direct image acquisition cuts out several steps in the image quality testing process and allows for in-the-loop testing with Imatest.

Learn more about Imatest’s image acquisition capabilities. 

Sensor Evaluation Boards

• OnSemi
• Omnivision
• Toshiba
• STMicroelectronics
• Graphin EasyLab

Capture Interfaces

• Android
• DirectShow
• QuickTime
• Analog
• Camera Link
• GigE Vision
• DCAM IEEE 1394b
• Blackmagic Design

Camera Vendors

• Adimec
• Allied Vision Tec
• FLIR
• Hamamatsu
• Hitachi
• Matrox Imaging
• Microsoft Kinect
• National Instruments
• Sony
• Toshiba Teli
• GEViCAM
• Imperx
• Lumenera
• Matrix Vision
• Teledyne DALSA
• QImaging
• VRmagic
• XIMEA

Imatest was recently featured in Automoblog.net’s article, Three Companies Changing the Autonomous Driving Landscape. Carl Anthony writes:

“With driverless cars, the implication is huge because cameras will play a vital role in the forthcoming autonomous world. In order for autonomy to deliver on its promises of reducing collisions and traffic fatalities, image quality is essential. Imatest takes this into consideration as today’s automotive trends usher us further into autonomy.”

Read the full article at www.automoblog.net/2017/06/30/three-companies-changing-the-autonomous-driving-landscape/. 

Imatest is pleased to unveil updated documentation for Imatest IT. The documentation has been updated to include the latest software release (Imatest 4.5), including details for new features, filtering options for preferred languages, and several new Troubleshooting articles.

Users can now filter Imatest IT instructions for their preferred languages and interfaces including C, C++, Python, .NET (C# and Visual Basic), and EXE. In addition, there are now more detailed installation and setup instructions for both Windows and Linux versions.

Imatest IT ships with several example projects in C++, Python, C#, and Visual Basic. You can find them in the samples folder of your IT installation, along with example images of Imatest test charts that can be used for each of IT’s analysis modules.

Related Content

Automating Lab and Manufacturing Processes – [Webinar]

Imatest’s charts and software allow you to measure the characteristics and parameters of imaging systems. Quite often these measurements simply indicate the limits of system performance and expected image quality.

But some Imatest results let you improve image quality— and subsequent images taken by the same system— by correcting measured aberrations. No new components need to be purchased; no judgement calls need to be made. All it takes is some math and computation, which you can apply in our own external program or with an Imatest module. This is an aspect of image processing pipeline tuning, which is usually done by a dedicated Image Signal Processing (ISP) chip in a device to transform raw sensor data into an appropriate image. 

At Imatest, we informally call this “closing the loop”, because it completes the cycle from the camera-under-test to measurement, back to the camera (in the form of an adjustment). 

Today, we’re going to illustrate how to use radial distortion measurements from Imatest to correct for optical distortion (without buying a new lens). (more…)

This paper was given as part of the Electronic Imaging 2017 Image Quality and System Performance XIV and Digital Photography and Mobile Imaging XIII sessions.

When: Tuesday, January 31, 2017, at 12:10 pm

By: Robert Sumner with support from Ranga Burada, Noah Kram

Abstract: The dead leaves image model is often used for measurement of the spatial frequency response (SFR) of digital cameras, where response to fine texture is of interest. It has a power spectral density (PSD) similar to natural images and image features of varying sizes, making it useful for measuring the texture-blurring effects of non-linear noise reduction which may not be well analyzed by traditional methods. The standard approach for analyzing images of this model is to compare observed PSDs to the analytically known one. However, recent works have proposed a cross-correlation based approach which promises more robust measurements via full-reference comparison with the known true pattern. A major assumption of this method is that the observed image and reference image can be aligned (registered) with sub-pixel accuracy.

Read Full Paper:

Effects of misregistration on the dead leaves cross-correlation texture blur analysis

This paper was given as part of the Electronic Imaging 2017 Autonomous Vehicles and Machine session.

When: Monday, January 30, 2017, at 10:10 am

By: Norman Koren with support from Henry Koren, Robert Sumner

Abstract:  The ISO 16505 standard for automotive Camera Monitor Systems uses high contrast hyperbolic wedges instead of slanted-edges to measure system resolution, defined as MTF10 (the spatial frequency where MTF = 10% of its low frequency value). Wedges were chosen based on the claim that slanted-edges are sensitive to signal processing. While this is indeed the case, we have found that wedges are also highly sensitive and present a number of meas­ure­ment challenges: Sub-pixel location variations cause unavoidable inconsistencies; wedge saturation makes results more stable at the expense of accuracy; MTF10 can be boosted by sharpening, noise, and other artifacts, and may never be reached. Poor quality images can exhibit high MTF10. We show that the onset of aliasing is a more stable performance indicator, and we discuss methods of getting the most accurate results from wedges as well as misun­derstandings about low contrast slanted-edges, which cor­relate better with system performance and are more repre­sentative of objects of interest in automotive and security imaging.

Full Text: Measuring MTF with Wedges: Pitfalls and best practices

Slides: Wedge_measurements_N_Koren_2017

Imatest upgrades based on the paper

The recommended metric to replace MTF10 (min(MTF10, onset of aliasing, Nyquist frequency)) is displayed in the Wedge MTF plot as well as the (new in Imatest 5.0) Multi-Wedge plot, shown below.

Multi-Wedge plot for eSFR ISO, including recommended metric.

Light Source

The most uniform light source available would be an integrating sphere, but these come with considerable size and expense. After considering how the light source uniformity impacts their results, most lab & manufacturing tests use LED or fluorescent lightboxes with flat-panel diffusers. Some customers choose a larger lightbox because that leads to greater uniformity within the central image plane area. We have performed a study of lightbox uniformity to see how different models compare. 

To perform tests with a transmissive chart setup, devices with built-in light sources will need to have that light source disabled. (more…)