Combining ultra-fast framing and high-speed video

Specialised Imaging Ltd. has produced a new technical report demonstrating the considerable utility of synchronised data collection using its the SIM Ultra Fast Framing camera in conjunction with a High Speed Video Camera system.

Recording of time-resolved images in applications including tensile strength testing, impact studies and crack propagation is of considerable interest to researchers. The results presented in the report demonstrate the advantages of synchronising the SIM Ultra Fast Framing camera with a high speed video camera. Operating at speeds of up 200 million frames per second the SIM camera is perfectly suited to recording and analysing the ultra fast dynamics of an object at the moment of impact or a sample under tensile stress at the point of fracture. However to record the complete fracturing process or propagation of cracks after impact typically requires recording of 100’s of frames and is much better suited to a high speed video camera that operates at lower resolution and at frame rates of up to 50,000 frames per second. Combining the two complementary techniques provides an optimised solution to capturing data.

Incorporating a supplementary optical port, the SIM8 beamsplitter delivers 50% of the light from the subject to a separate image plane, this allows a secondary instrument such as high speed video, streak camera or time resolved spectrometer to share the same optical axis as the framing channels. Using this innovative facility the SIM-8 is able, using a camera trigger, to seamlessly synchronise data capture with a high speed video camera to give a true no-compromise system for recording data optimally at all points within an impact study, tensile strength test or crack propagation experiment. Comprehensive software is provided with the SIM enabling set-up of both camera systems.

Unlike traditional ultra fast framing cameras the optical design of the SIM provides the choice of up to 16 separate optical channels without comprising performance or image quality. Effects such as parallax and shading, inherent in other designs, are eliminated and the high spatial resolution (> 50 lp/mm) is the same from frame to frame and in both axes. Individual ultra-high resolution intensified CCD detectors, controlled by state-of-the-art electronics, offer almost infinite control over gain and exposure allowing researchers total freedom to capture images of even the most difficult transient phenomena. The ability to mount individual filters on each optical channel provides the SIM with uniquely flexible spectral selectivity. An integral TFT monitor allows users to ‘see what the camera sees’ in real-time, thus allowing users to easily optimise focus and lighting to achieve spectacular results