image acquisition through firewire camera using Labview 7

[set parameter of camera]

hello,

i am a very beginner. i have a firewire(IEEE 1394) camera (IDT sharpVision 1400 DE)and Labview 7. i want to acquire time accurate images of moving particles using Labview. i have a firewire port in my pc. do i need to purchase only a NI-IMAQ driver for IEEE 1394 or only NI-IMAQ VISION software or both?. the IDT from where we have bought the camera have sent some Labview example VIs. i am bit confused because using these VIs, i can acquire and save images in sequence even though i don't have the IEEE driver and IMAQ-Vision. IDT people say i need only IMAQ-Vision and no drivers, but IMAQ-Vision is a image acquisition and also a image processing software. but i don't need image processing, so don't want to pay for that. i just want to acquire images in sequense, buffer & save them to hard disc. can you please help me out.

regards,

Abhijeet
iisc, Bangalore, India

[ColinAE]

Hello.

It sounds like the people that you purchased your camera from provide a driver (as well as a LabVIEW API) for your camera. If this is the case, and you can acquire images into LabVIEW, then you almost definitely do not need the NI-IMAQ for 1394 driver.

It sounds like your primary goal is acquisition and saving. If this is the case, then you would not benefit too much from IMAQ Vision, which provides the processing/analysis capabilities (as you mentioned). So the answer to your question is that you may not need either! If you do want to add any analysis to your application (you mention particle tracking??), then you can add IMAQ Vision into your LabVIEW application somewhat easily.

Hope this clarifies.
Regards,
Colin C.
Applications Engineering

[set parameter of camera]

hello,

thank you for your quick response and giving me such a usefull information. can i ask one more questions? as i mentioned that i can acquire images in sequense using sample VIs given by the camera people. but the problem is that to get the frame rate i want (about 25 images/sec),i need to buffer images. for this i don't have buffer VIs.
i can say that i want to do same thing as 'Ring.vi' does in IMAQ. i have some IMAQ sample VIs got with Labview 7.
but if i use them it shows an error 'bad interface' which may be because camera is not configured by MAX. to do this the IMAQ driver for IEEE 1394 may be necessary. for this reason i can not use most of the IMAQ VIs (high level and low level etc.). also how can i set my camera in to double exposure mode. i don't know the parameter key and the parameter value for this.

thank you,

Abhijeet,
iisc, Bangalore,India

[ColinAE]

Hello.

Indeed, the examples that you are finding on the Developer Zone are going to all be using our NI-IMAQ for 1394 driver, or the NI-IMAQ driver (equivalent for non-1394 cams). Therefore, the examples will not work with your provided camera driver and API.

As far as the double-exposure mode, that is usually a camera attribute. I know how I would recommend doing it using our driver, but it is definitely a camera-specific mode. You will probably have to contact your camera manufacturer for this.

Regards,
Colin C.
Appplications Engineering