Olympus creates one of the world's thinnest industrial videoscopes

Have something in a narrow space that you want to inspect? Well, you could do worse than using Olympus’ new iPLEX TX industrial videoscope. With a tip diameter of 2.4 millimeters, it’s one of the world’s thinnest such devices, but its image is also much more clear than those of other “fiberscopes.”

On previous 2.4mm-wide devices, the video image was a composite of the output of multiple optical fibers, the borders between which could plainly be seen obscuring the picture. According to an Olympus representative, however, the iPLEX has a CMOS image-capturing mechanism at its tip, which outputs the picture as a single electrical signal. The result is one cohesive image, like those that we’re used to seeing from regular video cameras. It also utilizes the company’s WiDER wide dynamic range image processing technology, to minimize loss of detail in bright and dark areas.

Additionally, the device is pretty tough, offering a reported 200 times more resistance to frictional wear than conventional fiberscopes.

It can be seen in action in the DigInfo video below.

Source: DigInfo