How to obtain all camera attributes such as brightness, shaprness, gain, etc

[Tony2002]

How can I obtain all of my camera's (hitachi HV-F22) attributes dynamically through labview?

Attributes such as:

Brightness

Sharpness

White balance

Gain

Shutter

Exposure

Saturation

Gamma

Hue

Etc....

If possible.

Thank you in advance,

TG

[OliviaC]

Hi TG,

There is an example of how to do this in LabVIEW's Example Finder. If you are using the 1394 interface, there is an example called Grab and Attributes Setup.vi in Hardware Input and Output»IMAQdx»High Level. If you are using the camerlink interface, there is an equivalent example called HL Analog attributes.vi in Hardware Input and Output»IMAQ»High Level.

[Tony2002]

Hello Olivia,

Thank you for your quick reply!

I am using the camera link interface and tried the HL analog Attributes.avi as you suggested, however, I am getting and error message stating "the requested attributes is invalid". The interface name for my cam is img0 (at least that's what it says in Max) .

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thank you in advance,

Tony G.

[Tony2002]

Also, I have the PCIe-1429 and I believe this may be the problem??

[OliviaC]

Hi Tony,

The attributes that you change programmatically depends on your camera and camera file. Some cameras allow you to set a wide range of attributes and others don't. In general, whichever attributes you see listed in MAX in the Camera Attributes tab, these are the ones available for you to set in LV.

[Tony2002]

Hello again Olivia,

I have a camera file but it only contains shutter speed, is there any way I can make my own camera file with all the attributes that my camera has? The camera file generator i downloaded fro Ni doesnt seem to have what I need or maybe i just dont know how to use it.. Is there any other way I can obtain or make my own camera file, with all the attributes?

Or.. is there a way I can set my camera to have certain attribute values in labview everytime I start it up? and then obtain those values to use in another VI?

Thank you in advance,

Tony G.

[Kristen_K.]

Hi Tony,

It may be easier to modify an existing Hitachi camera file. There is a Hitachi Kokusai Electric America HV-F22CL-S1 camera file available.  Which you can modify in the Camera File Generator. W

When starting the camera file generator select the1429 in the TargetBoard drop down list.  Then select "Open Existing Camera File". Select the Hitachi camera file linked above (you will have needed to download it and move it to the Data folder already).  Go to the camera control tab and click "Add"  This will allow you to add attributes to the camera file.  You will need to uses the camera documentation to determine the parameters for the attributes.  

You can also open the *.icd file in Notepad and edit it as a text document.  

Lastly,  you can also go here to request a camera file from NI.  (option 4 on the webpage).

I hope this helps!

Kristen H.

[Tony2002]

Hello Kristen,

Thank you for your quick and informative response.

I tried to do what you suggested. However, my camera manual does not necessarily have all the possible values for the attribute (s). \

For example:

   Brightness- all it shows in the manual= "Manual adjustment" Setting values 302Bxxzz h      xx:80h to 7Fh (default 00h)   zz: undefined

                                                               Set value towards 80h side to lower black level, toward 7Fh side to raise that

It does not show all the possible values as it did for the shutter speed attribute

This is the same situation with most if not the rest of the attributes (not including shutter speed, shutter speed does list the possible values unlike the rest of the attributes).

Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance,

Tony G.

[OliviaC]

Hi Tony,

Unfortunately, if the camera manual doesn't offer you much information, you might have to go with a trial and error approach. Chances are the Brightness attribute just a numeric number between two ranges. When you set up a new attribute select Numeric as the Attribute Type and select a large range to test with first. Test the some values to see what happens and adjust accordingly.