Olympus MicroFire Digital Camera

Olympus Updated: 2007-09-10
Olympus MicroFire Digital Camera

The MicroFire™, a 2 megapixel, 12-bit FireWire™ digital camera, is certain to satisfy user demands in digital image acquisition. The MicroFire offers intuitive, easy-to-use software that provides easy one-click access to the camera controls. In addition to the sleek camera body, there are a host of camera controls and image processing capabilities that make this camera a high performer.

The MicroFire uses a single exposure 2/3” CCD with a Bayer color filter. Both the live real-time display and captured images have a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. Images can be acquired in color or monochrome. Additionally, the MicroFire offers several solutions when signals are weak. Users have the option to boost the image intensity and reduce the exposure time by using one of the binning options, increasing the gain, or using a combination of both.

# 1600 x 1200 pixel image resolution (2 Megapixel).

# 7.4 micron pixels that provide high sensitivity and a large dynamic range.

# FireWire™ interface for rapid image data transfer.

# 12-bit image file depth (4096 intensity values) or 8-bit, selectable. The 12-bit image file depth option provides a high dynamic range for increased color fidelity.

# Exposure times range from 500 µseconds to 60 seconds. Exposure time can be reduced significantly when binning and when linked to the 1x to 16X gain . . . resulting in frame rates up to 66 fps.

# Easy to use camera control interface

# Advanced image processing with image merging capabilities. Two images can be interactively mixed with varied percentages to make a new image.

# Full screen live viewing. In addition to displaying full-frame live images, the window provides an indication of the image dimensions, zoom setting, position of the cursor, and the RGB intensity values of a pixel. All of the camera controls are readily available at your fingertips and appear as buttons or slider bars. They can be docked or undocked to or from the live window for rapid accessibility.

# Boost the image intensity by using a 2x, 3x (color), or 4x binning mode and region of interest subframing mode. When in a binning mode, you have the option to acquire images at the full or binned resolution and the exposure is adjusted for you automatically.

# Color or monochrome image acquisition.

# Automatic sequential image acquisition with the time-lapse function allows the user to acquire a series of images simply by setting the desired number of images followed by a time interval.

# Flatfield correction/background subtraction functions. A background subtraction function will correct an image for noise and the flatfield correction function will correct for shading.

# A thumbnail "filmstrip" buffer provides a convenient place to store several images while keeping the main application space free from clutter.

# MicroFire runs on Windows™ 98SE, ME, 2000, and XP. PC system recommendation is that the computer has a processor rate of 1 GHZ or higher, and 512MB of RAM.