What is Progressive Scanning?

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Progressive scanning refers to a very simple and intuitive operation mode of a video camera: All lines are output in ascending order, that is, first line 0, then line 1 and so on. In order to do so, a camera must either have no frame store within the CCD sensor, or have a frame transfer CCD or a full frame interline transfer CCD (this type of camera is most suitable for machine vision). The latter is a CCD sensor with an interline frame store which has the same resolution as the sensor area. Simpler interlaced cameras with a standard interline transfer CCD (such as the Sony XC-75) have a frame store with only half the vertical resolution.

What really is relevant is not the line scan order but rather if the camera is able to capture a a moving object with full resolution, that is, if it has a full frame shutter. The term "progressive scan" has been used instead of the term "full frame shutter"; this is somewhat misleading. In fact, CCDs exists with no shutter capability (no frame store) but progressive scanning.

In short, cameras with a full frame shutter, such as the Sony XC-55, are marketed as progressive scan cameras and have the ability to capture moving objects with full horizontal and vertical resolution. Standard interlaced cameras, such as the Sony XC-003/003P, can only capture moving objects with half the vertical resolution (but full horizontal resolution); this is due to the design of the CCD sensor.

Advanced Cameras that read out complete frames rather than interleaved fields as with Standard format cameras. Ideal for applications with fast moving scene and where high resolution is required.

Firstsight Vision can supply frame grabbers and processing engines capable of dealing with data rates at this level.

For more information about machine vision and progressive scanning, see our camera section.