MX1000 mouse by logitech

[fire400]

I read on the box, said that optical technology is yesterday and that laser technology is born, summarized.

sez it shoots two lasers for more accuracy.

how do you shoot three lasers?

 

[Pulsar]

Why would a mouse use 3 lasers?

A mouse moves in only two dimensions. X and Y. As such, optimal resolution can be achieved by measuring motion specifically in those two dimensions.

I suppose a third laser might be used for error correction, but it's unnecessary.

 

[Mark R]

As far as I know, the optical sensor in the MX1000 is identical to the optical sensor in the MX500/MX700 series mice. [I suppose there may be some minor differences, e.g. the MX1000 sensor is tuned to infra-red, rather than red light].

The only apparent difference is that the MX500/700 use a single LED to illuminate the surface, whereas the MX1000 uses a single laser.

The advantage of the laser beam is that it can be collimated so that it appears to diverge from a point source, whereas the LED source can't be focused as perfectly. This, and the tendency of laser light sources to 'speckle' (sparkle) means that the sensor can pick up a much higher contrast image - even when the mouse is used on very low-contrast surfaces e.g. glass.

If you aren't clear just how an optical mouse works, it's pretty simple:
The mouse contains a lamp (LED or laser) which illuminates the surface.
A video camera in the mouse takes images of the surface.
A CPU in the mouse compares frames in the video, and finds matching areas, then uses the matching areas to calculate the movement.

The video sensor in the mouse is arranged to examine a very tiny area (about 1mm x 1mm), it takes low res images (resolution is 16 x 16) at high frame rate (about 4000 fps).

 

[Horus]

I don't know how it works or why, but I've used the MX1000 and G7, and the MX1000 is a billion times more comfortable. And the thumb-buttons rock

 

[snes tor]

+10 for the MX1000.


Maybe a thrid lazer for a Z axis? Up and down. 🙂

 

[Rubycon]

A lot of confusion was caused twenty years ago when we had three beam pickups and single beam pickups in CD player transports. Both used a single source - gain guided 780 nm laser diode. With a beam splitter you can have more than one beam. The receiver - whether a simple photodiode array or CMOS sensor - doesn't care if the beams come from seperate laser diodes or a single one that has its source split up.

The same is true with mice - whether they use a light emitting diode or a laser diode - both types are optical. 🙂