LabVIEW 7 USB Camera

[C. Allen Weekley]

Has anyone tried to use the new USB functions in LabVIEW 7 to capture an image from a USB camera?

[dmp]

Actually, you will need a USB driver for the camera. There are several third party organizations which make such drivers. For example, Inventeering.com has an ActiveX Control that interfaces to USB Cameras, as well as LabVIEW examples. You might also check out http://www.geocities.com/irene_he/IVision.html or Peter Parente's webcam drivers (www.mindofpete.org).

For more information, you may want to post this question on the Vision discussion forum. Here's an example of a thread from that forum on USB cameras: http://exchange.ni.com/servlet/ProcessRequest?RHIVEID=101&RNAME=ViewQuestion&HOID=5065000000080000009B7E0000&ECategory=Vision

I hope this helps!

Best regards,
Dawna P.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[mhaag]

Hello,

I wanted to update this post for those users who may be looking for a solution on using USB cameras with LabVIEW or Vision Assistant. Recently NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras was released as an example program on National Instruments' Developer Exchange (see link below). NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras is a free software driver for acquiring images from any DirectShow imaging device into LabVIEW. These devices include USB cameras, webcams, microscopes, scanners, and many consumer-grade imaging products. With the driver, users can configure their device, and acquire images into LabVIEW.

NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras

Note: While NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras comes with complete documentation, it is not supported by National Instruments' Applications Engineers. Any support questions should be directed to other users through the Discussion Forums.


Regards,
Michael
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[mal11]

while it is mentioned above that NI-IMAQ for USB is free, you have to go to the link to
find that in addition to LabVIEW 7+ you must also have NI Vision, which can cost more
than LabVIEW.
that's a bummer...

[JVS]

Somebody knows how can I communicate labview with the Pinacle Studio Movie Box Deluxe USB image acquisition hardware?

Thanks!!!

[DJ_L.]

Hey JVS,

You can try and use the NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras driver to bring the images in, but this driver requires that the USB image device have DirectShow support.

If this does not work for you, then the hardware that you would like to use has to have some form of API that LabVIEW can communicate with. If it does, then you can just use a call library function node to call into the Pinacle software for it to return images to LabVIEW. Or you can try to use ActiveX to bring in the images. Last, you could check with the hardware manufacturer to see if they have any LabVIEW support or VI's that will allow their hardware to work with LV.

If the above doesn't work for you, then you might have to save the images to disk and then use the Vision Software to open the images from the files. Or you could display them by using native LabVIEW functions.

I hope this helps. Please let us know what your final solution is, so that others who would like to interact the same hardware with LabVIEW will be able to find a solution easily. Also, let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thanks, and have a great day.

Regards,
DJ L.

[JVS]

Thank you very much for your reply.
I could communicate with this hardware using the IVision driver that I found in http://www.geocities.com/irene_he/IVision.html
Before, I tried to use the IMaq USB functions but it returned an error.
Best regards.