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1536 x 1024 elements whereas the other two use a sensor with 3072 x 2048 elements. The sensor sizes are 13.8 x 9.2mm and 27.6 x 
18.4mm respectively. In order to be able to compete with film based cameras it was necessary to incorporate CCD sensors with 
excellent anti-blooming capabilities and a wide dynamic range. For example, the Kodak DCS420 camera employs a 10 bit A/D 
converter to increase its dynamic range. All cameras use a PCMCIA disk for intermediate data storage. A 131 Mbyte PCMCIA disk 
allows 82 images from a Kodak DCS420 camera to be stored. Changing disks takes only a few seconds, thus a tremendous amount of 
images can be efficiently captured and stored. 
To improve the use of the camera, Kodak has integrated 8 Mbyte of RAM into the DCS420. The user can shoot up to 5 images at 0.5 
second intervals. This feature allows a rapidly acquired set of images from one location to be subsequently stored on disk while the 
operator moves to the next station. In addition, the standard Nikon camera body (and controls) ensures that the camera is easy to use 
and is compatible with a wide selection of lenses, allowing adaptability to different measuring tasks. 
  
Figure 1. The Kodak DCS420 digital camera and notebook workstation. 
The integrated SCSI interface makes it possible to use the same cameras in an on-line mode. IMETRIC has developed a SCSI device 
driver for SUN-Workstations that can acquire images in less than one second from a Kodak DCS420. Thus multi-camera systems 
with up to 6 cameras were realised using synchronised Kodak DCS420 cameras. 
A limiting factor with the DCS420 camera is the size of the sensor (13.8 x 9.2mm). Even when using a specially built 10mm lens the 
field of view is smaller than with conventional film based cameras. The Kodak DCS460 camera with its 3072 x 2048 pixel array 
improves the situation dramatically. The image is 4 times as large and covers 6096 of the area of a 24 x 36mm film. With this camera, 
14mm lenses provide a wide field of view (this is equivalent to an 18mm lens with 24 x 36mm film). 
IMETRIC has developed a series of systems based on the Kodak DCS cameras. Table 1 lists these systems. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
System Camera(s) Classification 
IMETRICS TP210 1 DCS420 Off-line, portable 
IMETRICS TP610 1 DCS460 Off-line, portable 
IMETRICS TP252 2 DCS420 On-line, transportable 
IMETRICS TP254 4 DCS420 On-line, transportable 
IMETRICS TP652 2 DCS460 On-line, transportable 
Table 1. The systems offered by IMETRIC with the Kodak DCS cameras. 
The IMETRICS TP210 system and TP610 system use the Kodak DCS420 and DCS460 cameras respectively. These systems are 
designed for off-line applications, where images are acquired by a person, robot or other positioning device, and the imagery is stored 
on PCMCIA disks. These systems can be configured with a standard workstation or a notebook workstation with SPARC-processors 
and the Solaris (UNIX) operating system. The off-line systems have found applications in areas where portability of the measurement 
system as well as data reduction at the measurement location are of importance. Both capabilities have proven to be invaluable in a 
multitude of production environments as well as for engineering in remote locations. The systems can operate at full performance 
without any power connection for up to 6 hours using an optional external battery pack. 
IAPRS, Vol. 30, Part 5W1, ISPRS Intercommission Workshop “From Pixels to Sequences", Zurich, March 22-24 1995 
  
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