is LabVIEW the right language for my setup?

[whbit]

I'm new at LabVIEW, as the following inquiry will make glaringly obvious.

I am upgrading and old system that is used for tracking a laser beam scanned through a lens to find the entrance and exit slopes of the beam. In reading up on LabVIEW and its brethren (specifically NI Vision and NI Motion Control) I feel like all of the components of what I need to do would be available to me. These essentially being:

a) controlling the stepper motors to move in x and y to predetermined points on the lens

b) acquiring images from two cameras simultaneously

c) tracing and recording the laser beam seen in the image, to be able to determine its slope at in any given frame

d) using edge detection to outline the surface of the lens

e) using a conversion factor to easily determine the actual scale of the images

Once I have installed LabVIEW and am on my way, I feel like the above tasks would not be too difficult to execute. However, I am most worried about the compatibility of my cameras with the entire NI world. They are Pulnix TM-1327 GigE cameras, and are currently acquiring footage through the Jai Cam2net program.

So my real question is: Will I be able to connect these cameras dirtectly to be controlled by the LabVIEW system? If not, is there a way to integrate a different vision acquisition system with LabVIEW and NI Motion Control, and susequently NI Vision? Or would it be better for me to just acquire the images through the Jai software and then analyze them using a separate characteristic identification program, while controlling the steppers with C code or something?

Any answers, suggestions or advice would be more than welcome.

Thanks,

W

p.s. on a related note, I was just looking through the Cam2net folders on my system's computer, and found this text file in the Cam2net > Code Samples > Labview folder:

Copyright (c) 2006, Pleora Technologies Inc., All rights reserved.
                            ====================
                               LabView sample
                            ====================
This sample illustrates how to connect to an IP engine from LabView using
the COM objects
1. Introduction
This sample shows how to:
 * Use the IP Engine SDK COM objects in LabView
2. Pre-conditions
This tutorial assumes that:
 * You are familiar with LabView
 * You are familiar with the IP Engine SDK COM objects
 * You know how to call COM from LabView
 * You have a config.xml file in your working directory
3. Description
This sample program is a LabView version of the sample application.
It does load the configuration from an xml file, fills in the CyConfig
object, and connects to the IP engine through a CyGrabber object with
the data in the CyConfig object.
It then starts the image acquisition and displays the images in a
CyDisplayEx ActiveX component instance.

Will this help me with my above concerns?

[Nate.H]

Dear whbit,

I agree that all of the various aspects of you application could be accomplished with NI-Vision & NI-Motion in LabVIEW. I do not see any huge impediments to programming your application with the information that you have provided.

As to using your GigE cameras, I read through an older post here but there was no resolution listed. I assume that you never did get your cameras working correctly if you are still concerned about it now. What ever did happen with the GigE Firmware Updater that you found on the Pulnix website and getting it to work with your Intel Pro 1000 NIC? If you can update the firmware to make your cameras truly GigE Vision compliant, then they should work with the IMAQdx driver. Please let me know how things turned out with regards to the firmware update.

Best Regards,

~NH

[whbit]

Hello NH,
   Thanks for your reply, and I'm glad that you don't see any impediments with using LabVIEW to complete the applications I'm planning to use it for.
As far as the cameras go, I was having massive problems just trying to get them to work with Cam2Net, the software with which they are supposed to connect simply. So before I got any further on the firmware updating, I sent them to an out-of-town associate to get them hooked up in his lab, so that we'd be able to at least get some images from them. This means that they are now working with Cam2Net 2.3.1 and are acquiring images without issue. However, the first few steps of the camera frimware update manual involve doing a few steps in Cam2Net 2.2.x, before you uninstall it and install 2.3.1. The reason for this being that 2.2.x has a "driver installation tool" that can perform ceratin tasks that nothing in 2.3.1 seems to be able to do. I assume that my associate did not complete these steps before installing 2.3.1. The steps are as follows:
1) Change the Intel Pro 1000 card from a Grabber Device to an Ethernet Controller
2) Uninstall any filter drivers

   Once it gets past these steps, the updater manual requires you to install Cam2Net 2.3.1, and thus everything from that point on I should, barring any unforeseen tragedies, be able to complete the rest of the steps and update the firmware. But in order to proceed with the confidence of someone who is not going to destroy their boss' $4000 cameras, I'd like to make sure that my drivers are in an acceptable configuration.
When I open the "Driver Installation Tool" that is on my computer now with 2.3.1 (much different from the tool of the same name in 2.2.x), it lists my driver as a "Cam2Net High-Performance IP Device Driver". This brings up a few issues:
1) Does this mean that the driver is already an Ethernet Controller, and can perform all the necessary updating tasks I need it to?
2) If so, which of the 4 ports do I use? (in the manual they suggest that you write down the MAC address of the driver you change to Ethernet Controller, and make sure it matches in this new "Driver Installation" window...but then again, the NIC they use only has one port)
3) If I try to proceed in the hopes that this configuration is correct, is my worst case scenario that nothing happens, or is it that I open an all-encompassing black hole that destroys the universe and ruins my day, or somewhere in between?

So this confusing pile of words is where I stand in the Firmware Updating world.
Anything you can think of to help keep me heading in the right direction would be wildly appreciated.
Thanks again,
Cheers,
W

[Nate.H]

Dear whbit,

I'm afraid that I am not familiar enough (read: at all) with Cam2Net to advise you on the particulars of that software. Have you tried talking to the makers of Cam2Net? Perhaps they could be able to help you with what seems a somewhat confusing process.

Sorry I can't be of more help to you on this particular part of your issue I hope you can get the camera firmware updated successfully, because it should be downhill from there!

Best Regards,

~Nate

[whbit]

NH,

  no problem...i wasn't exprecting that the NI forum would be able to extend into the realms of Cam2Net, but i thought i'd try. However, there is something I think you might be able to hlep me with. After installing LabVIEW 8.5 on my computer, the cameras I was using with such carefree jubilance through Cam2Net have stopped being able to connect to the software. The Cam2Net program now crashes any time I try to connect to the cameras, and occasionally heeds warnings of "subnets do not match!". Aftter looking into the problem, and noticing that the problem seems to have coincided with the installation of LabVIEW, my only thought is that perhaps LabVIEW installs its own driver for the GigE interface, and that is conflicting with the Cam2Net software. 

  any idea on whether this is true, and how to get around it if it is?

W

[Nate.H]

Dear W,

The driver that NI uses to interface to GigE & Firewire cameras is called IMAQdx. If you have IMAQdx and a 3rd party driver that installed with the Cam2Net software, they can definitely interfere with each other. Unfortunately, the only solution I am able to suggest to get the cameras to work with IMAQdx and NI software is to uninstall the 3rd party software & drivers from the computer.

~Nate

[whbit]

Thanks for the advice.

When I contacted my camera-literate associate and asked him about getting the cameras working with LabVIEW, he asked me if i wanted to us the NI iPort driver or the Genicam drivert to connect to the cameras. Apparently, using the Genicam requires upgrading the firmware, and using the iPort doesn't. What are your thoughts on this? Will either of these work for what i'm trying to accomplish?

thanks again in advance,

W

[Nate.H]

Dear W,

I'm not sure why your associate mentioned the "NI iPort" driver. I've never heard of this as a driver, and the only drivers I know of that you can use to interface cameras with LabVIEW are NI-IMAQ, NI-IMAQdx, & the older NI IEEE for 1394 driver. I did find a reference to "iPort" but it was in reference to digital I/O using the Traditional DAQ driver. See this post. I'm a little confused, could you elaborate on this? It is my understanding that the firmware upgrade was to make the camera GigE Vision standard compliant. Your camera will have to be GigE Vision standard compliant for interfacing with the NI-IMAQdx driver, so I think you will have to upgrade the cameras firmware one way or another.

Best Regards,

~Nate

[whbit]

Nate,

   I had the same problems in trying to locate this "iPort" driver, and figured that it was likely not the way to go, seeing as I could find no mention of it pretty much anywhere. So I'm glad to see that we are in agreement there. As for the firmware upgrade, I have started to go ahead with that, as it seems to be the only easiest option for interfacing the cameras with LabVIEW (the Cam2Net software has a sample LabVIEW VI in its documentation that is a sample of how to export images to LabVIEW, but obviously the two programs have trouble running on the same computer...and this also seems like an over-complication I could do without). However, as with every other step of this project (sigh), I have been running into problems in just trying to upgrade the firmware. After following the upgrade manual step by step, the whole thing fell apart at the last step before the upgrade actually begins, where an IP Engine Selection window is supposed to give you the option to upgrade once you have given the camera a unique IP address...but instead, with my luck, the window appears blank. So right now I am concentrating my efforts on trying to rectify that situation. But once I get the firmware upgraded (assuming I eventually do...grrrrrrrr), I'm sure that I will be back on here probing your expertise once again.

   Thanks for everything, talk soon, no doubt.

Cheers,

W 

[whbit]

hello again!

     after being sidetracked by a few other projects, i reloaded windows on my computer, and things seem to be working out way way better. i managed to upgrade the firmware on the cameras so that they are GigE Vision compliant, and managed to get the IMAQdx program to recognize that the cameras are plugged in. My only issue, one that i hope you will be able to help with, is that once i get into the Measurement & Automation Explorer, the acquisition field is blank, and when i try to change any parameters (packet size, region of interest, timeout, etc.) a warning comes up that says "Error 0xBFF69012 Attribute Value is Out of Range" and i can't seem to find anything in the help section, or online to tell me what to do to change this. I assume, or pray rather, that there is a simple solution to this problem, and maybe you know it!

  i'd love to install LabVIEW and start programming the system ASAP, so if you ahve any pointers they will be very helpful.

cheers,

W