LabVIEW
What is the difference between VI's for LabVIEW from one company compared to another company for the same piece of equipment?
FSRI wrote:
> What is the difference between VI's for LabVIEW from one company
> compared to another company for the same piece of equipment?
>
> I am trying to control a camera, frame grabber and stage using
> LabVIEW. We have the VI drivers for the stage and we have them for
> the frame grabber. The problem is that the ones for the frame grabber
> came from another company then who we bought the frmae grabber form
> and so they won't recognize the instrument becuase the name is
> different. I am pretty sure that the configuration is the same for
> both companies instruments though.
You are talking about PCI cards here. Unless one card is an OEM product
or a clone of the other, they are seldom to be considered the same
eventhough they might use the same ICs.
Such cards come with their own drivers and some sort of API. This API is
either the system API such as VfW, DirectShow, QuickTime or whatever or
a proprietary API such as NI-IMAQ. If your VIs use the proprietary API
they will only work with cards which support that API, in most cases
this means only cards from that manufacturer. If your VIs use the system
API they will usually work with any card which has support for that API
such as VfW or DirectShow on Windows and Quicktime on MacOS.
> So now I need to write new drivers for
> the Coreco Frame grabber that we have. Problem is the experiment
> ships out in four weeks, so it must be done by then and I don't know
> if I can write drivers from scratch in time, plus have testing time.
> Does anybody know a short cut or how I could use the drivers that I
> have and change them somehow to be compatable with the other companies
> instrument?
Well, you say a lot about these things, but besides of the card you have
you tell little. What sort of driver do you have which will not work
with your Coreco card? Why do you believe this driver should work with
your card other than that it is a frame grabber too?
In my experience and seeing your time constraints I do not consider
development of a new driver, even if it is just the VIs, an option
unless you can spend a very serious part of those 4 weeks just for that.
Rolf Kalbermatter
> What is the difference between VI's for LabVIEW from one company
> compared to another company for the same piece of equipment?
>
> I am trying to control a camera, frame grabber and stage using
> LabVIEW. We have the VI drivers for the stage and we have them for
> the frame grabber. The problem is that the ones for the frame grabber
> came from another company then who we bought the frmae grabber form
> and so they won't recognize the instrument becuase the name is
> different. I am pretty sure that the configuration is the same for
> both companies instruments though.
You are talking about PCI cards here. Unless one card is an OEM product
or a clone of the other, they are seldom to be considered the same
eventhough they might use the same ICs.
Such cards come with their own drivers and some sort of API. This API is
either the system API such as VfW, DirectShow, QuickTime or whatever or
a proprietary API such as NI-IMAQ. If your VIs use the proprietary API
they will only work with cards which support that API, in most cases
this means only cards from that manufacturer. If your VIs use the system
API they will usually work with any card which has support for that API
such as VfW or DirectShow on Windows and Quicktime on MacOS.
> So now I need to write new drivers for
> the Coreco Frame grabber that we have. Problem is the experiment
> ships out in four weeks, so it must be done by then and I don't know
> if I can write drivers from scratch in time, plus have testing time.
> Does anybody know a short cut or how I could use the drivers that I
> have and change them somehow to be compatable with the other companies
> instrument?
Well, you say a lot about these things, but besides of the card you have
you tell little. What sort of driver do you have which will not work
with your Coreco card? Why do you believe this driver should work with
your card other than that it is a frame grabber too?
In my experience and seeing your time constraints I do not consider
development of a new driver, even if it is just the VIs, an option
unless you can spend a very serious part of those 4 weeks just for that.
Rolf Kalbermatter
FSRI wrote:
> Thank you very much for your response. We have Bitflow drivers for a
> Bitflow frame grabber. I am still trying to see if another ocmpany
> sells the Coreco Board and so has the LabVIEW drivers. Hopefully I
> will find it in time. If not I just have to run more than one
> software at a time, which isn't the end of the world. Thanks agian.
I see! If Coreco itself doesn't support (and probably know) about
LabVIEW, chances are getting very small. There are a few Alliance
Partners such as Graftec which might have some drivers for cards from
other manufacturers. If Coreco is one of their supported hardware
products I would not know and in fact I doubt it.
Since you have the Bitflow drivers the simplest solution would be to use
a Bitflow card. Are you bound to use the Coreco card? Another aproach
would be to check if Coreco supports also access of their card through
Video for Windows or Direct Show. Most actually do either one or the
other and sometimes both, although there may be sometimes limits in what
features you can use (max frame rate, frames sizes, etc) in this way
compared to a cards native API. For a Video for Windows supported card
you could use the library from Pete Parente:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~parente/labview/index.shtml
For DirectShow based access you can look at Irene He's vision library
http://www.hytekautomation.com/Products/IVision.html
This is a complete image analysis library with camera VIs accessing the
DirectShow interface in Windows. It is not free but very extensive and
well worth its money.
Rolf Kalbermatter
> Thank you very much for your response. We have Bitflow drivers for a
> Bitflow frame grabber. I am still trying to see if another ocmpany
> sells the Coreco Board and so has the LabVIEW drivers. Hopefully I
> will find it in time. If not I just have to run more than one
> software at a time, which isn't the end of the world. Thanks agian.
I see! If Coreco itself doesn't support (and probably know) about
LabVIEW, chances are getting very small. There are a few Alliance
Partners such as Graftec which might have some drivers for cards from
other manufacturers. If Coreco is one of their supported hardware
products I would not know and in fact I doubt it.
Since you have the Bitflow drivers the simplest solution would be to use
a Bitflow card. Are you bound to use the Coreco card? Another aproach
would be to check if Coreco supports also access of their card through
Video for Windows or Direct Show. Most actually do either one or the
other and sometimes both, although there may be sometimes limits in what
features you can use (max frame rate, frames sizes, etc) in this way
compared to a cards native API. For a Video for Windows supported card
you could use the library from Pete Parente:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~parente/labview/index.shtml
For DirectShow based access you can look at Irene He's vision library
http://www.hytekautomation.com/Products/IVision.html
This is a complete image analysis library with camera VIs accessing the
DirectShow interface in Windows. It is not free but very extensive and
well worth its money.
Rolf Kalbermatter
