How to trigger a camera with 1394 drivers

[Raimon]

Hi,

I am rather new to 1394 drivers and I need to do a triggered acquisition with a Marlin digital camera, IMAQ and LabVIEW. I also have a PCI-6036E NI card in the same computer. The idea is to do a grab acquisition at 150 fps.

I know that I must use the ConfigureTrigger.vi function but I have some questions.

1) I don't know how to construct the trigger signal. It is possible to construct it with the same program that do the grab acquisition? or I must run two LabVIEW programs in parallel? (one program with the grab acquisition and the other with the trigger signal).

2) Does it exist a LabVIEW function to generate a trigger to the PCI NI card?

Any suggestion would be appreciate!

Raimon

[Steffen Hoog]

I never heard about a Marlin which acquires 150 fps. Anyway, connect your trigger signal to the hirose connector of the camera. Open examples to generate a pulse train (6036E) and to acquire images in triggered mode. You should find them on your PC at: \\National Instruments\LabVIEW x.x\examples\DAQmx\Counter and \\National Instruments\LabVIEW x.x\examples\Imaq\IMAQ1394examples.llb. Of course you can use both functions (generate pulse and acquire images) in the same VI. Just start the pulse generation first.

[Raimon]

Hi,

First of all I must thank you your reply. With your help I managed to trigger my acquisition . And the 150 fps was an error. I wanted to say 15 fps. I have only one question:

• Into the triggered grab loop I have to do some image analysis that consume time. Is there any way to make sure that the delay between images is the same as the trigger delay?

Well, thank you for your help,
Raimon

[Nicolas]

Hi Raimon, I would suggest you take a look at the following example: <LabVIEW>\examples\IMAQ\IMAQ1394 examples.llb\Triggered Grab.vi. It illlustrates how you can use the "Buffer Number Out" output of the IMAQ1394 Grab Acquire VI to detect a trigger overrun, i.e. that the image processing code is taking to long and missed an image.

Hope this helps,

Nicolas

[Raimon]

Hi Nicola,

Thank you for your reply. I am not able to find the "Triggered Grab.vi". Do you want to say the "Triggered Grab Async (with DAQ).vi" in the IMAQ1394 examples.llb? If not, could you send me the example?

Thank you very much,
Raimon