AVT GigE (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) How to install a GigE camera Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye V2.1.
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Contents Contacting Allied Vision Technologies ................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 6 Document history............................................................................................................ 6 Manual overview .............................................................................................................
Using National Instruments software ............................................................................ 33 Performance optimization .............................................................................36 Using AcquireControl ..................................................................................................... 37 Using 3rd party solutions................................................................................................ 37 Adjusting firewall settings ..........
Contacting Allied Vision Technologies Contacting Allied Vision Technologies Info • Technical information: http://www.alliedvisiontec.com • Support: support@alliedvisiontec.com Allied Vision Technologies GmbH (Headquarters) Taschenweg 2a 07646 Stadtroda, Germany Tel.: +49 36428-677-0 Fax.: +49 36428-677-28 e-mail: info@alliedvisiontec.com Allied Vision Technologies Canada Inc.
Introduction Introduction This Manual describes in depth the installation of the AVT GigE cameras (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye). Note Please read through this manual carefully. For more information, see http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/emea/support/downloads/ product-literature.html Document history Version Date Description V2.0.0 03.11.11 New Manual How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/ Goldeye) V2.1.0 04.05.12 • • Reworked and updated all chapters.
Introduction • • • • • Chapter Display camera live images on page 20 describes in general how to get live images from IP-based cameras and display them. Chapter Performance optimization on page 36 describes how to optimize your system. Chapter Adjusting firewall settings on page 38 describes how to configure the firewall settings. Chapter Troubleshooting on page 39 helps you when you get in trouble. Chapter Index on page 50 gives you quick access to all relevant data in this manual.
Introduction www This symbol highlights URLs for further information. The URL itself is shown in blue. Example: http://www.alliedvisiontec.com Before operation We place the highest demands for quality on our cameras. Target group This Technical Manual is the guide to detailed technical information of the camera and is written for experts. Note Caution Please read through this manual carefully before operating the camera.
Introduction Cleaning instructions Note Dark spots on the image, especially at nearly closed aperture, are mostly caused by dust on the sensor of the camera. Allied Vision Technologies GmbH cleans the sensors around the lens mount thread with pure air in a clean room class 1000. After a careful test in the clean room a seal is affixed on the lens mount aperture.
IP-based camera access: background IP-based camera access: background In order to access a camera (or any other device) in the network, it is necessary that the camera and also the Network Interface Card (NIC) have a valid IP address. Every device in the network must have a unique IP address. The following graphic illustrates the assembling of such network: Figure 1: Network with IP-based cameras The chosen IP addresses and the way the devices are connected in the illustration above are just an example.
IP-based camera access: background • • • • • • The NIC (Network Interface Card) of the PC must be Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T) compatible. To maximize hardware performance, devices that offer jumbo packet support (8 kB MTU size) are recommended. For best performance all network devices including cameras, PCs and switches should support the packet size output by the camera. If using Windows XP make sure that the Microsoft Hotfix KB926255 is installed.
IP settings: preliminary considerations IP settings: preliminary considerations There are several different ways the camera may get its IP address. Please refer to the following subchapters to choose the best solution for your application. Please also refer to Chapter General tips for setting IP addresses on page 16 for additional information how to set an IP address for a NIC (Network Interface Card).
IP settings: preliminary considerations Static IP address The camera can also use a static IP address. This address can be set while connecting to the camera with AVT AcquireControl software. Note The Pleora driver has to be installed to run this application. Figure 2: Select static IP address Example: PC Camera 192.168.1.1 Set by the user once 192.168.1.2 Set by the user manually after every camera power up.
IP settings: preliminary considerations Static Persistent IP for GigE Vision camera To store a persistent IP for a camera with GEV firmware, use the Pleora software GEVPlayer. Please refer to Chapter Installing GigE driver from Pleora on page 18. 1. Open GEVPlayer, select the camera and set the desired persistent IP Figure 3: GEV Device Selection 2.
IP settings: preliminary considerations Figure 4: GEV Device Control How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
General tips for setting IP addresses General tips for setting IP addresses 1. While changing Windows IP address settings make sure that no camera application is running. 2. To set the IP address of a PC NIC, open the network connections (Start -> Settings -> Network connections). Then open the properties window of the desired connection. Figure 5: Set IP address How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
General tips for setting IP addresses 3. It is also possible to add a second (or even more) IP address(es) to the NIC. In this case the Pleora IP engine always uses the bottom entry of the IP list: Example: This NIC works with two IP ranges: • Static IP address for LAN traffic • LLA for a camera Figure 6: Pleora IP engine uses the bottom entry of the IP list To verify which NIC IP address is used by the Pleora IP engine, click on the NIC entry during camera selection process.
Installing GigE driver from Pleora Installing GigE driver from Pleora In order to access a camera it is not necessary to install a driver. Note We recommend to use the iPORT/eBUS filter driver architecture for the best performance. (NIC manufacturers drivers usually have a slow performance.) It is not necessary to install any driver if you want to work with National Instruments applications. 3rd party solutions also support GEV compliant cameras.
Hardware connection and first power up Hardware connection and first power up 1. Connect the camera via a CAT5e cable to the PC/notebook. This can be done directly or over a gigabit network switch. 2. Connect the camera to the power supply. 3. Power on the camera and verify the state of the LEDs on the backside of the camera. It can take up to 5 seconds until the camera is ready for use.
Display camera live images Display camera live images You can use various software applications to display live camera images. The following subchapters describe how to get a live image with: • AcquireControl • Pleora Coyote • Pleora GEVPlayer • 3rd party solutions Refer to the technical documentation of these software solutions. Using AcquireControl Most of the following settings are stored by the application, so these configuration steps are necessary only once.
Display camera live images Select the IP address In dependence of the driver version you use, the appearance of this dialog may differ. If an IP address could not be set automatically it can be set within this dialog manually. Figure 11: Select IP address After closing the Set IP Engine IP Address dialog you now can select the eBUS Filter driver entry. How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Select the camera Bigeye cameras Goldeye cameras Pearleye cameras Table 3: Select the camera model you want to use How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Select the image processing chain Figure 12: Select image processing chain Start the continuous snap Figure 13: AcquireControl: Start continuous snap You get live images from the camera with the default exposure time and default camera settings. You can stop the live image by Stop snap. How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Advanced operations The AcquireControl software was developed for many different cameras. This chapter introduces the basic commands for controlling your camera. Exposure control Figure 14: Camera control Figure 15: Camera control: Exposure control How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Bigeye cameras Mode Screenshot Continuous Mode. The camera uses its built-in exposure signal, which is always constant. IOD Timer Mode. The exposure signal is generated by a timer, which can be adjusted with the dialog. IOD Trigger Mode. The camera waits for an external exposure signal. Table 4: Exposure control: continuous mode and IOD modes Goldeye cameras NIR cameras have an internal non-uniformity correction and bad pixel correction.
Display camera live images Figure 17: Goldeye: Terminal example: V=0 Figure 18: Goldeye: Terminal example: S=4 How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Note V and S are upper case letters Pearleye cameras For Pearleye cameras it is not possible the change the exposure time. Due to the microbolometer sensors, Pearleye cameras always work in Continuous mode. After the camera warm-up phase and during operation: Calibrate the internal image correction. Note For detailed information, see Pearleye Technical Manual. Figure 19: Camera Control Terminal How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Figure 20: Pearleye: calibration The calibration can be started by the command k=0. After some seconds the camera is calibrated. Note k is a lower case letter Pseudo Color and Contrast Enhancement With the help of the Pseudo color dialog you can change the display of an image. Also you have the possibility to change the contrast of the displayed image to see more details of the 12-bit values. How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Note Note Don’t adjust this with the camera parameters. The contrast slider only changes the displayed values of the 12-bit camera image and not the camera data itself. The availability of this dialog depends on the chosen image process chain (see Chapter Select the image processing chain on page 23).
Display camera live images Start here Figure 22: Pearleye: Background correction Statistics and histogram It can be very useful to take a look at the statistic / histogram values to be sure that the light conditions are OK (see Image processing menu). For a good light condition of the scene, the histogram of the image is balanced to the middle of the 12 bit (4096/2=2048), as shown below. How to install a GigE camera (Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye) V2.1.
Display camera live images Figure 23: Pearleye: Statistics and histogram Click Options to calculate the histogram for the entire image or only for an AOI. Using Pleora Coyote 1. Install the GigE VDS Camera Integration DLL. Ask AVT Application Engineering (Technical support) for details. 2. Start Coyote. 3. Select the camera by Click Detect… to select the camera and set IP (if necessary). 4. Select the camera type. 5. Click Connect. 6. Go to the Acquisition tab and click Start.
Display camera live images If the GigE VDS Camera Integration DLL is not installed, the Programmable Logic Controller of the IP Engine and the image format has to be setup manually: 7. After connecting to the camera click Configure. 8. Adjust the settings for I0 … I7 and the Lookup Table as follows: Figure 24: Pleora Coyote: Configuration 9. Click Pixel tab and select the correct Color space and Pixel depth. 10. Click Image tab and adjust the image size corresponding to the used camera.
Display camera live images Using Pleora GEVPlayer The Pleora GEVPlayer is an application which can grab images from a camera with GigE Vision compliance. All Bigeye/Pearleye/Goldeye cameras are GigE Vision V1.2 compliant. Note In order to work with a GigE Vision compatible camera it is necessary to use at least Pleora driver version 2.3.3. 1. Start GEVPlayer. 2. Click Select / Connect to select the camera and set IP (if necessary). 3. Click Play. 4.
Display camera live images Figure 25: IMAQdx driver 2. Open the Devices and Interfaces branch. After a few seconds the camera should appear. 3. Click once on the camera entry. Now every register of the camera is read which can take a few seconds. 4. In the lower pane of the MAX software now several controls appear for accessing the camera parameters. Please also refer to Chapter Appendix on page 41 for more information regarding the registers. Figure 26: MAX: CameraAttributes 5.
Display camera live images all NI applications and delete all files and folders within the following directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\National Instruments\NIIMAQdx\Data • When you want to switch between a GigE Vision application (e.g. NI MAX) and an iPORT application (e.g. Coyote), it is necessary to power cycle the camera. • In some situations the MAX software is not able to confirm the used pixel format.
Performance optimization Performance optimization The video data from the camera is (like all other data in the network) transferred in packets. The default value for this packet size is 1440 bytes. In some cases it can be an advantage to increase this packet size because then fewer packets are needed to transfer the image data. This results in less overhead and better performance. But these oversized packets are not standardized so not every network card / device supports it.
Performance optimization Using AcquireControl 1. Close AcquireControl. 2. Go to the installation directory. 3. Open the file UniGrab.ini with a text editor. 4. Find the GRABBER_ section with the description Gigabit Ethernet (iPORT) 5. Find the value PacketSize and enter the determined Jumbo Frame size – 72 bytes. 6. Save the file and start AcquireControl again. Using 3rd party solutions Using National Instruments software 1. Start MAX. 2. Open the camera. 3.
Adjusting firewall settings Adjusting firewall settings 1. For the first test all firewalls and antivirus solutions should be disabled. Only when the camera can be accessed properly without any firewall one can try to adjust firewall settings step by step. The communication from and to the camera is done in the UDP protocol. 2. A global rule for incoming and outgoing traffic should be created Rule: Pleora outgoing (Allow) • Protocol: UDP • Direction: Outgoing, Packet type: Local • Remote Host: 255.255.
Troubleshooting Troubleshooting • If the camera can be detected but no images can be grabbed, verify the camera operation mode. Make sure the camera operate with Continuous Mode, and not with IOD mode. The three modes have the following meaning: – Continuous Mode – The camera generates the images with a constant exposure time independently. This exposure time cannot be adjusted.
Troubleshooting • • • • Launch the Information Gathering Tool which was installed with the Pleora driver package. A shortcut to this program can be found in the Pleora Technologies Inc folder of the Start menu. Save the generated output to a file. Make screenshots of the problem and the network connection dialogs of windows. Write down the state of the LEDs on the backside of the GIP-1000 camera module. Mail all the files to the AVT support support@alliedvisiontec.
Appendix Appendix GigE Vision register description Note This chapter describes all GigE Vision features. In dependence of the camera the availability of certain features may vary. DeviceInformation Feature Description DeviceModeName Name of the attached camera model. DeviceID Unique 32 bit device ID of the AVT camera model. DeviceUserID User ID field. This field can be accessed (R/W) by the user to store an additional device identifier.
Appendix ImageSizeControl Feature Description SensorWidth Maximum width of the sensor in pixels. SensorHeight Maximum height of the sensor in pixels. WidthMax This feature represents the maximum width (in pixels) of the image after horizontal binning, decimation or any other function changing the horizontal dimensions of the image.
Appendix Feature Description AcquisitionStop Stops the image acquisition of the camera. TriggerMode Modifies the trigger mode of the camera. When the trigger mode is Off, the camera will generate frames independently. When the trigger mode is On the camera is switched to the so called IOD (Image On Demand) mode. In this mode the camera waits for an external trigger signal or an timer pulse generated internally. To control exposure and dark time trigger mode must be switched to On.
Appendix CameraSpecialFeatures What is a CameraSpecialFeature? This section contains camera depending commands like serial commands (if available). For each command within this branch you will find a description text in your GigE Vision software. The description contains a reference to the serial command which can be found in the base manual of the camera for further information.
Appendix Feature Description CameraTemperatureState Camera temperature state. 0 = The camera temperature is OK. 1 = The camera temperature is outside the optimum range. CameraTemperatureStateReg Camera temperature state register. QueryCameraTemperatureState Query camera temperature state. (T=1 command) Table 11: Camera special feature: Camera temperature Feature Description SensorTemperatureState Camera sensor temperature state. 0 = The sensor temperature is OK.
Appendix CameraSpecialFeatures\TwoPointCorrection Feature Description TPC_OperationMode Operation mode of the two-point correction. (E= command) TPC_CorrectionData_FileNumber File number of the flash file containing the set values for the two-point correction. (N= command) TPC_SetValue_LowRef Define the set value for the low reference image of the two-point correction.
Appendix CameraSpecialFeatures\LUT Feature Description LUT_OperationMode Operation mode of the LUT. (G= command) LUT_CorrectionData_FileNumber File number of the data for the LUT. (D= command) Table 16: Camera special feature: LUT CameraSpecialFeatures\IntegratorAndImageStore Feature Description IIS_OperationMode Operation mode of the integrator and image store. (H= command) While reading this feature the MSB shows the state of the integration process.
Appendix GigE Vision timer calculations The figure below shows how an exposure signal is generated. Figure 28: GigE Vision timer calculations In order to adjust tExp and tDark of the TREX pulse in each case two parameters are available: • ExposureTime & ExposureTimeGranularity • DarkTime & DarkTimeGranularity The granularities are integer values in the range from 0…65535 which define the minimum and maximum pulse widths. The minimum pulse width is equal to the time granularity.
Appendix Feature mapping This table shows the mapping of the camera features to the corresponding features in the GigE Vision naming convention. AVT camera feature Camera Link CC port GigE Vision feature names TREX CC1 ExposureMode, ExposureTime, DarkTime TREX is an input signal. The LOW time defines the exposure time. The HIGH time defines the dark time. BIN CC2 BinningVertical. If the camera has 2x2 binning implemented, the BinningHorizontal feature is set automatically.
Index Index A AcquireControl using ................................................ 20 B BinningHorizontal .................................... 42 BinningVertical ........................................ 42 C GigE Vision cameras............................. 14 Static Persistent IP address ........................ 13 styles ....................................................... 7 Support .................................................... 5 symbols....................................................
