Prophesee has launched an evaluation kit for developers of computer vision systems looking to evaluate Sony’s new IMX636ES HD stacked event-based vision sensor. The sensor itself was developed in collaboration between Sony and Prophesee, providing stacked event-based vision sensing that detects only subject changes.

The evaluation kit provides computer vision engineers with a tested solution for efficient technology onboarding and rapid application prototyping and development. The kit is natively compatible with free software from Prophesee and includes premium-level technical support.

The Sony IMX636ES, which combines Sony’s CMOS image sensor technology with Prophesee’s event-based Metavision sensing technology, features what the company said is an industry leading 4.86μm pixel pitch and 1280 x720 pixel resolution, making it suitable for a wide range of vision-enabled use cases in industrial, mobility, and consumer applications. This enables high-speed, high-precision data acquisition and helps improve the productivity of industrial equipment.

The evaluation kit (EVK) comes with the free Metavision Intelligence Suite from Prophesee, a comprehensive set of software tools that facilitate efficient application development. It features 95 algorithms, 67 code samples and 11 ready-to-use applications and is augmented by a global open-source community of developers. This allows developers to quickly perform a variety of design exploration steps and efficiently incorporate customized software applications to meet specific market requirements.

Built from high-quality aluminum alloy, the EVK combines a lightweight 40g design with efficient heat dissipation, electrical isolation and overall casing shielding. Measuring 30x30x36 mm, it can fit in space-constrained systems and is designed to withstand field testing conditions. The kit has been extensively tested to ensure it will perform in a wide range of industrial environmental conditions, including change of temperature, moisture, rough handling shocks and is designed to manage electrostatic discharge effectively.

Prophesee said the high precision engineering behind the kit ensures perfect optical alignment between the sensor, optical barrel and camera body. Developers can switch seamlessly between any C / CS mount compatible lens, from 8mm objective lens to microscope/telescope imaging ports. Provided with the kits are a C-mount 1/2.5’’ lens, a C-CS lens mount adapter, tripod and USB–C to USB-A cable.

The co-founder and CEO of Prophesee, Luca Verre, said interest in this sensor has been extremely high and that the EVK is a good way to start evaluating how the sensor performs for multiple use cases and market-specific machine visions systems. He commented, “This new EVK will enable computer vision engineers, integrators, and camera manufacturers to get a complete and accurate understanding of how to leverage the performance advantages offered by this innovative architecture, and tap into an expanding global community of more than 4,000 developers already working on event-based Metavision applications.” The EVK is available from Prophesee immediately.

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