Getting the Resulting Frame Rate (Abs) property of a Basler Ace acA2000-340kc camera link wtih PCIe-1433 framegrabber

[PaulSammut]

Hello! I have a Basler Ace acA2000-340kc camera link camera connected to a PCIe-1433 framegrabber. I am using IMAQ vi's to build a VI for our high speed video recording application. 

I have a vi that controls exposure and height/width attributes. It is important for us to know what the resulting frame-rate will be before initiating the recording. Basler has a handy attribute called Resulting Frame Rate (Abs) that returns what the frame rate will be depending on the selected resolution and exposure time. Using Basler's pylon viewer, I can see this number. Using MAX, I cannot. It seems as this command was not included in NI's camera file that they made for this camera. I'd like very much to be able to read this value with my VI, perhaps by using the IMAQ get attribute VI.

It seems as I should be able to edit the camera file using NI's camera file generator. I started trying to figure out what the serial command should be to access the right register but I'm not making lots of progress and I was wondering if anyone has done this before and can post up what the command is. Thanks for any help!

-Paul

[LVbum42]

Paul,

I believe I spoke to you over the phone about this issue.  I'm glad you were able to locate the camera file generator.  I was able to do some research and some Basler attributes are not included in our camera files included with our IMAQ drivers.  I believe there is some agreement between Basler and National instruments.  However you are correct that you should be able to locate the serial command and edit the camera file to include it using the camera file generator.  These serial commands are usually included in the user manual of the camera listed with the serial commands of the other attributes.  You can check the acA200-340kc manual that came with the camera and see how the attributes that are included with our driver are done then add the missing serial command in a similar fasion using the camera file generator.  Hope this helps.

Isaac S.

[ac82]

Hi Isaac,

I have a similar problem with the same camera but for controlling the frame rate

In the Basler's pylon viewer, I can see a lot of options not present in MAX, including a controller from the acquisition frame rate, more usefull for me instead of changing exposure time and resolution each time.

the only solution for a more direct control is change the camera file?

Thank you,

Best

Antonio

[LVbum42]

Antonio,

The short answer is yes. Some of the options in pylon such as frame rate are higher level attributes.  For frame rate, I believe pylon  performs it's own processing to calculate what to set other attributes that the frame rate is dependent on such as exposure time and resolution.  Then it  likely sends serial commands to the camera to make the necessary adjustments.  You may be able to create a frame rate attribute in the camera file that takes the desired frame rate as a parameter but then calculates the attributes and execute the serial commands.  You would need to contact basler for more specifics on how pylon configures the frame rate and what attributes it changes.  Once you know the attributes needed, you can get their serial commands from the camera's user manual.  Instead of adding an attribute to the camera file, it's more like adding a function to configure the other attributes.  

[dleventh]

I am using teh same camer and frame grabber to record high speed video and have had similar problems, I am using Pylon to control the camera settings but have not been able to record anything over ~90 fps with decent exposure in grayscale and much slower in color. What kind of buffer or compression are you using? 

[MatthewHogg]

have you had any luck with this?  I am experiencing the same problem - i am not able to adjust (increase) the frame rate of the same camera and frame grabber in NI MAX, in order for me to record videos via a labview vi at a higher (configurable) frame rate that ~90fps.

As with previous users - I am bale to view and supposedly change all of these parameters using Pylon view.

Any help would be much appreciated as it is starting to drive me mad!

MAtt

[BauerPower]

Matt,

As Isaac noted above, the easiest way to do it would be to send serial commands to the camera from LabVIEW. You should be able to determine what serial commands are being sent for each attribute by refering to the Basler documentation and then use a VISA write in LabVIEW to send that same serial command. If that doesn't work, you may try starting a new thread as they typically get more attention than older, resolved threads.