How to access to all parameters of a firewire camera?

[Ricoladroso]

Hi,

I am using a Basler scA640-120fm (Firewire IEEE 1394b) camera. When using the pylon software from Basler, I can modify all camera parameters. But when I use Labview or the Measurement & Automation software my options are very limited. Does anyone know how to fix that?

Thanks a lot. 

[JtotheB]

Hey Ricoladroso,

Unfortunately, IMAQdx only allows you to access a certain feature set of the camera, and usually will not be as complete as the feature set that the camera manfacturer's drivers are. However, you can access those features by calling into the manufacturer's .dlls using a Call Library Function Node. You may need to find some documentation about the .dlls from the manufacturer, but that is how you can use those features that IMAQdx doesn't provide access to. Hope that helps!

[BlueCheese]

For Firewire cameras, IMAQdx uses the IIDC DCAM specification, which standardizes a fairly large subset of camera functionality used for machine vision cameras, but unfortunately some functionality that is vendor specific cannot be known by the driver. (On the GigE Vision version of the Basler Scout, since it is based on the GenICam and GigE Vision standards, all camera functionality is self-describing so that IMAQdx can show every feature).

Using a call library node will not help here... if the camera is being used in IMAQdx it will not be accessible simultaneously in Basler's Pylon API. Furthermore, wrapping a C++ API like Pylon would be really hard in LabVIEW.

To access this vendor-specific functionality there are two methods I can suggest:

- If you do not need run-time access to configure the particular settings, you might be able to configure the specific setting within Pylon and then save them as the power-on defaults. Assiming they don't conflict with other settings IMAQdx is trying to control you should have those same settings when you then open the camera with IMAQdx

- If the method above is not suitable, you can use register level programming to access the functionality. IMAQdx provides low-level read/write register API functions that you can use to access those registers. Basler provides this register-level documentation in ther "BCAM" manual. I couldn't find the copy on Basler's website, but Graftek has a copy here: http://www.graftek.com/pdf/Manuals/basler/ScoutUsers_Manual.pdf

Eric

[Ricoladroso]

I have been trying to read/write the registers but have been unsuccesful yet. It keeps returning the folowing error: "Hex 0xBFF69008 not implement yet".

Would you know what it means? and how to fix that?

Thanks a lot.

[BlueCheese]

Could you show a screenshot of your code? I don't know of any reason why you could get that specific error when trying to access a register...

*EDIT* -- What does your camera look like in MAX? I am wondering if you are using Microsoft's DirectShow driver with the camera. You might need to associate the camera with the IMAQdx driver instead.

Eric

[Ricoladroso]

Hi,

I am posting screen captures of the vi and the associated error relating to register read, of the camera in the MAX software and the associated driver in device management.

Thanks

Eric

[BlueCheese · Accepted solution]

You are connecting to the camera though Basler's driver and DirectShow filter. This will limit the functionality you can access on the camera. In MAX, click on the top-most camera (with the FireWire logo) - you will get an error saying the camera cannot be opened. Right click on the camera and change the driver to IMAQdx. Then you can click on that camera and access all the functionality. It might be helpful to see if you can uninstall Basler's DirectShow driver so that it does not show up in IMAQdx as an available camera.

Eric

[Ricoladroso]

Hi Eric,

I uninstalled the camera and the bus drivers. After restarting the computer, the camera has been detected and installed with the NI drivers. Now, I can go the Measurement and Automation software and have access to all parameters!

Thanks a lot.

Eric