This demonstration fully exploits AnaLogic/Eutecus's Bi-i vision system with the ACE16k chip in detecting, recording and characterizing sparks at ultra-high frame rates.

The Bi-i system is capable of classifying a spark at a rate of over 30,000 frames per second. The ACE16k chip enables the system to perform morphological operations without significant speed reduction. The following measurements can be performed:

• Real-time calculation of an aggregate image of a spark train;
• Real-time morphological analysis;
• Real-time identification of split sparks;
• Real-time position monitoring of the sparks;
• Making real-time statistical analyses of the locations, splitting, spark time etc.;
• Real-time statistics on morphological properties and/or position of the sparks;
• Real-time energy estimation of sparks;
• Event detection.

The local sensor memory of the ACE16k chip also allows the storage of 8 consecutive images, which results in an image capturing speed of about 200,000 frames per second (for up to 8 frames). The images can then be transferred off-chip for further analysis. Such capability and performance is extremely useful for capturing extremely fast events of short duration.

The complete application developed with the Bi-i Software Developer Kit and the InstantVision libraries runs on the standalone Bi-i platform. The program can be easily adapted to the classification and quality inspection of other kinds of "flicker events" (e.g. observable during welding).