Access to VBAI 2.6 image buffer in CVS 1455

[RegisPhilbin]

Using VBAI 2.6,  I'm able to "write to buffer" from the Vision Assistant.  But is there a way to access this "image buffer" from Labview?  or the File directory via FTP? 

Regis

[RegisPhilbin]

Updated:

Using VBAI 2.6, I'm able to "write to buffer" from the Vision Assistant for Vision builder . But is there a way to access this "image buffer" from Labview? or the File directory via FTP? Or somehow get the image file into a labview array? Nothing i've seen can programatically access this buffer.....(maybe i'm just not looking in the right places)

I'm also uncertain how this buffer works. If you go to the Image Buffer Setup screen within Vision Assistant, it shows you a list of 10 buffer elements and its state (filled or empty). How is this buffer filled as you inspect your product? does it go from 1-10 and the discard the oldest image each subsequent iteration? or does it mean the buffer size is 1, and you have 10 spaces for different images from different cameras?

just FYI, I don't have access to IMAQ vision.

Regis

[David S.]

Hi Regis -

To answer your first question:  When you store an image in a memory buffer during the Vision Assistant step, that buffer is only accessible while the step is acting.  When the step finishes, Vision Assistant will "clean up" is memory resources.  This includes erasing all buffers that it was using.

If you want to be able to save a VBAI image to file so it can be accessed by other aplications (FTP browser, another LV app, etc), you can do this using a LabVIEW step. You will need to download and install the NI-IMAQ driver, which gives you the "IMAQ Write File" VI.  Then you can build a LabVIEW step that takes the image as input and writes it to a PNG file.  (Other file formats are only supported by the IMAQ Vision development module.)

As for the side question regarding Vision Assistant's buffer list:  This is a list of ten memory spaces set aside to store up to ten images from any source.  Each slot is an individual buffer, and can only hold one image.  There is no automatic management of the buffer list, so you have to manually overwrite buffers yourself if you want to use them in a ring setup.

[RegisPhilbin]

David,

Thanks for your answers!  It's starting to make more sense now.   I couldn't find any of this info in the manuals out there.  Am i not looking in the right place?

Regis

[David S.]

The following KnowledgeBase article discusses saving images from VBAI into a file:
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/544D83A91FCB034C86256FFD00742D2B?OpenDocument

(the method is an alternative to the one I described)

Unfortunately, there is currently no extended documentation on the Image Buffer step in our documentation. I can, however, request that future revisions contain a better description of the step.