Optical Engineering & Camera Engineering Technical Blog
Lens selection guides, imaging fundamentals, and machine vision engineering references written by the Commonlands optical engineering team in San Diego.
51 articles
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Industrial & Medical InspectionMachine Vision Lenses for Food & Pharma Packaging Inspection
Choose lenses for food, beverage, and pharmaceutical packaging inspection: washdown-rated optics, fill-level and label checks, and date-c...
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Industrial & Medical InspectionMachine Vision Lenses for Electronics Inspection
Choose machine vision lenses for electronics inspection: resolution and working distance for PCB, semiconductor wafer, and battery defect...
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Industrial & Medical InspectionLenses for Medical Imaging
Lens selection for medical imaging and device inspection: mount and sensor matching, sterilization and material constraints, and resoluti...
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Ground Sampling Distance Calculator for Drone Camera Lenses
Interactive ground sampling distance calculator and lens selection guide for drone mapping, photogrammetry, and ground object detection.
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Robotics & Embedded VisionLenses for Drones
M12 lens selection for drones: GSD and focal length for mapping, low-distortion optics for inspection, and lightweight wide-angle lenses ...
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Automotive & TransportationLenses for Autonomous Vehicles
Choose lenses for autonomous vehicles by camera position: ADAS forward optics, surround-view fisheye, and driver monitoring NIR lens requ...
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Automotive & TransportationLenses for Intelligent Transportation Systems
Lens selection for intelligent transportation systems: focal length and plate-pixel requirements for LPR, iris control, and day/night ima...
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Surveillance & SecurityLenses for Surveillance
Choose surveillance camera lenses: day/night IR-corrected optics, IR-cut switching, focal length for DORI range, and M12 vs CS-mount sele...
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Robotics & Embedded VisionLenses for Embedded Vision
Choose lenses for embedded vision: M12 vs C-mount for board cameras, sensor and image-circle matching, and board-level integration constr...
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Robotics & Embedded VisionLenses for Robotics
Choose robotics lenses by task: wide-angle for navigation and SLAM, low-distortion for pick-and-place, and depth-sensing for stereo vision.
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Industrial & Medical InspectionLenses for Barcode Reading, OCR & Document Scanning
Lens selection for data capture: pixel coverage for 1D and 2D barcodes, character-height sampling for OCR, and flat-field uniformity for ...
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Industrial & Medical InspectionMachine Vision Lenses for Quality Inspection
Choose machine vision lenses for quality inspection by task: resolution and working distance for defect detection, gauging, and print/lab...
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Imaging FundamentalsHow to Clean a Camera Lens
Ever wondered about the best practices to clean a lens or image sensor? Our optical engineering experts have put together this article to...
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Optical PerformanceWhat Is an F-theta Lens?
What an f-theta lens is: how scan lenses map galvo angle to a flat focal plane for laser marking and engraving, and how they differ from ...
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Wide Angle vs Fisheye Lenses and Distortion
Optical distortion is a third order transverse aberration. The simple explanation is that distortion is the change in magnification (angu...
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Focus & AlignmentAutofocus in Machine Vision
How machine vision autofocus works: fixed focus vs autofocus, voice-coil and piezo M12 mounts, manual focus mechanics, and contrast vs ph...
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Focus & AlignmentFixed vs Varifocal vs Zoom Machine Vision Lenses
Fixed focal length vs varifocal vs zoom machine vision lenses: focus behavior, calibration stability, and how to choose for repeatable me...
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Ruggedized LensesRuggedized Machine Vision Lenses
Ruggedized machine vision lenses: thermal focus stability, hydrophobic coatings, vibration resistance, and IP sealing for harsh environme...
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Ruggedized LensesIP Ratings for Machine Vision Lenses
What IP67, IP68, and IP69K mean for machine vision lenses: ingress protection levels, washdown, and when a sealed or ruggedized lens is r...
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Optical PerformanceStray Light in Machine Vision
Control stray light in machine vision: veiling flare, ghosting, and glare, plus baffles, BBAR anti-reflection coatings, and lens-hood fixes.
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Filters & NIR ImagingBandpass Filters for Machine Vision
Machine vision optical filters explained: IR-cut for color accuracy, bandpass for NIR isolation (CWL, FWHM, OD), and dual-bandpass day/ni...
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Filters & NIR ImagingNIR Imaging for Machine Vision
NIR imaging for machine vision: 850nm vs 940nm illumination, bandpass filters, IR-corrected lenses, and sensor QE tradeoffs for near-infr...
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Filters & NIR ImagingIR Corrected Lenses for Machine Vision
IR corrected lenses hold focus across visible and NIR light so day/night cameras stay sharp. How IR correction works and when you need it.
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Focus & AlignmentActive Alignment for Camera Modules
Active alignment positions a lens to the image sensor in six degrees of freedom while measuring MTF live, then locks it with UV-cure adhe...
