Area Scan vs. Line Scan

Cameras use different methods of acquiring the pixels of an image. Two commonly used methods are area scan and line scan. An area scan camera acquires an area of pixels at a time until the entire image is acquired. Most applications use this type of camera. A line scan camera scans only one line of pixels at a time, providing faster acquisition. However, the lines must be fit together by your acquisition hardware and software to create a whole image. Line scan cameras are useful in web inspection applications during which the object under inspection moves along a conveyor or stage in a production system. Line scan cameras are also useful in high-resolution applications because you can arbitrarily lengthen the image by fitting a specified number of lines together.