Are the imaq attribute names part of the imaqdx version?

[OliverE]

Hello everybody,

I have programmed a vision acquisition software for our customer about 2 years ago with a SVS 1102MUGEV2 gigE camera. I used two attributes to change the exposure and gain, which I read out from the camera. The attribute names I used are

ExposureTimeAbs

CameraAttributes::AnalogControls::GainAbs

CameraAttributes::AnalogControls::GainAutoLevel

CameraAttributes::AnalogControl::GainAuto

During the last two years I made about 10-15 updates of the program without any problems. About a month ago (after an update) my customer reported that the corresponding subvis stopped working. I looked into the logfile and found out, that the imaq function reported an error “Attribute not supported”. I got the possibility to test the program with a new camera (same model, but of course higher camera firmware). The attribute names that I now read from the camera are

CameraAttributes::AcquisitionControl::ExposureTime

CameraAttributes::AnalogControl::Gain

CameraAttributes::AnalogControl::GainAutoLevel

CameraAttributes::AnalogControl::GainAuto

It is unlikely that the customer updated the camera firmware or the camera driver on his own.

Are the attribute names part of the imaqdx version???

I updated my main system to LV2010 SP1 recently what caused other problems (imaq.dll changed, function names changed), so I had to switch the development to “clean” build computer with LV8.6 only. On this build computer I read the above attribute names, which are different from the ones I used before. The programm works now here - but will it also on my customers computer? How can an attribute name change?

Can anybody shed some light on this topic?

Thanks,

Oliver

[toto26 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

First, you are right, the firmware of the camera has been updated and causes the changes.

Then you have to know that the attributes are not part of IMAQdx. As each camera has its own attributes, IMAQdx can't have the attribute names for all the models of cameras. All the attributes are stored in an XML file that is uploaded to your computer when you plug the camera for the first time. You can find it in C:\Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\IMAQdx\data

If you want to know all the attributes supported by your camera, use the IMAQdx Enumerate Attributes.vi.

Then you can easily build a tree to present your attributes like MAX do. In order to do this, take a look at this really cool example in the Example finder under Hardware Input and Output->IMAQdx->High-Level->Grab and Attributes Setup.vi.

Hope this helps

[OliverE]

Thank you very much, at least I know now that the installed imaq version is not to blame.

I thought there might be same general attributes that could have changed. If all properties are read from the camera, I'll have to look at this point...

[BlueCheese]

Also note that IMAQdx uses a "fuzzy" matching to allow you to specify only partial matches of the attribute name. In other words, you can leave out the category names as qualifications and just use the last part of the name (e.g "Gain"). Note that this won't help if the attribute's name actually chnages as well.

Eric

[Steve_TDiode]

How are the High and Low serial number atrtributes obtained ?  The serial numbers that IMAQdx reports for my Mightex camera are different than written on the camera and different from those reported by that manufacturer's DirectShow test program.

See http://forums.ni.com/t5/Machine-Vision/IMAQdx-reporting-different-camera-serial-number-from/td-p/199...

Steve

[OliverE]

It has been some time since my last post and (before I close the topic) I can provide some more information for anybody struggling with the svs-vistek cameras.

The attributes seem to depend on the installed driver version. I had to use some older drivers because I run into several bluescreens / hard camera resets during development. The attribute names changed independent from the firmware of the camera.

FYI , the reset problem occurred when changing the AOI on the camera chip in combination with the external trigger. The problem disappeared when I removed the NI -GIGE driver from the system.

[zero89]

I use a pixlink 1394 camera to acquire images,the camera support set the attribute of the frame rate,while when i use IMAQdx property node to attriute ,it returnes error.When use the MAX to set the frame rate,it can work at the first acquire,but when i stop and acquire again or take some other operation it returns error,and cant't work until i unplugged the camera and connect it again.

[tantradnya]

Thanks helped a lot. I feel that for GigE camera software programming text based language is more convenient than Labview :).