USB Camera Driver Won't Install

[DJDDA]

I'm using LabVIEW 8.5 on a full professional development install and I want to make a VI that dispalys the input from my USB webcam.  It doesn't need to do anything special to it, just display it.  I downloaded "imaq_usb_installer_setup.exe" from here, but it gives me an error and tells me that I need Vision 7.1 (screenshot attached to this post).

As near as I can tell, I've installed Vision 7.1 (and everything else on the August 2007 DVD just to be safe), but even if I follow the procedures given on that page by MBflower or Evgeny Sviridov (or both), I can't get past the error.

Does anyone have any ideas for this? 

[muks]

R u having mutiple versions of LabVIEW installed in your pc?

[Adam_H]

Hi DJDDA,

Have you installed the driver for the camera its self.  IMAQ for USB will allow you to use your camera in LabVIEW but you still need have the driver for the camera its self installed.  Is your camera Direct Show compliant?  This is also a requirement for the IMAQ for USB to wok.

[DJDDA]

I first tried it with just 8.5 installed, but when that didn't work and the workarounds didn't work, I installed the entire August 2007 Full Professional Development License DVD (which didn't end up helping).

 Adam_H: My camera drivers are installed and working, but I don't know what Direct Show is.  I just know that my camera works in every chat program I've tried it in, but that now I want a window for it in LabVIEW and am having trouble.  That being said, I don't see anything in the documentation that says you can't install IMAQ for USB until your camera is installed, where are you getting that?  That doesn't seem very intuitive.  I have NI-488.2 installed, but my computer doesn't have a GPIB controller, for example.

[Adam_H]

Hi DjDDA,

The driver I was referring to is the driver that is supplied by your camera manufacture.  If you are able to use your camera in chat programs I am sure it is installed.  That is the error that you will get if you do not have Vision installed.  So I am thinking that either you don’t have Vision installed or there is something wrong with the install.  One possibility is that you are installing Vision Acquisition software and not the Vision Development Module.  The Vision Development Module is what is meant when you see NI Vision.  Here is a link to Vision Development Model in case you are not familiar with it.  Is this what you have installed?

[DJDDA]

...Oh.

Okay, is that something that comes with the LabVIEW Full Professional Development  package?  If it isn't, I don't; I'm guessing "No," looking at what I have, but I'm not certain.  How can I check with certainty?

I had originally been expecting something with VISA references and property nodes, etc., anyway--something more involved than an easy, pre-packaged driver for USB webcams., something more like my other sundry devices work.  I don't know a lot about how LabVIEW interacts with hardware, though.  Is there such a thing, some other way to see my webcam view in a LabVIEW VI? 

[Adam_H]

Hi DJDDA,

The IMAQ for USB driver is a simple easy to use driver to use with webcams.  That is what it is for.  However it does require you to have some other software packages to work.  This is what is listed in the System Requirements section of the download page.  It is not something that would typically come with the LabVIEW Professional Development System.  To check and see if you have it installed you can look in the license manager and see if you have NI-Vision 8.x installed.  I have attached a little image of what it looks like on my end (I have two versions installed).   You could also look for NI-Vision 8.x in Measurement & Automation Explorer.

[DJDDA]

Okay, then I don't have it.

 So, is there any other way to access a USB webcam?

[Adam_H]

Hi DJDDA, National Instruments does not offer any other way to interface with USB web cams. It may be possible to interface with them using DLL calls or something along those lines however this will not be easy to accomplish. It will require you to have a good understanding of how to call into the DLL’s.

[DJDDA]

Bah!  Well, OK, thank you for the clear answer.