Glossary · Machine vision
Monochrome camera
Also known as: Black-and-white camera, Mono camera, Grayscale camera
German: Monochromkamera
In machine vision, a monochrome camera is a camera that records only brightness (gray values) without color filters, giving higher sensitivity and full effective resolution compared with a color camera using the same sensor.
- Machine vision
In one sentence
A monochrome camera records only gray values, giving higher sensitivity and full resolution; the standard choice for measurement.
Example
A monochrome camera with red light makes the black print on a red label stand out clearly without needing color processing.
How it applies
- Engineering: Most measurement and inspection tasks use monochrome cameras. Colored lighting or filters can separate colors by brightness where true color measurement is not required. Near-infrared variants are used when visible light would disturb operators or when materials show better contrast in infrared.
- Commissioning: Without color interpolation, edges are sharper and more light reaches each pixel, allowing shorter exposure times.
- Documentation: The documentation team should state whether colored light or filters are part of the setup, because replacing them with other colors changes the contrast and the inspection result.
Monochrome camera vs. color camera
A monochrome camera cannot distinguish hues of the same brightness; a Color camera can, at the cost of sensitivity and effective resolution.