Troubleshooting Dropped Camera Frames

[Gregory]

Hi there,

I'm using Point Grey Flea3 gigE cameras in LabVIEW, and on some computers the camera seems to be dropping frames. Though I don't get a blank frame, I get a noisy frame without the objects I am looking at. I have attached two example pictures, one with what I want to see and one with just noise. They are in U16 format.

This problem occurs in my LabVIEW program and in MAX. It occurs when the camera is triggered or not, and even when I set the frame rate low. I never ran into this problem when I developed the application, so I think it has to do with the computers I deploy it to.

The computer that I took these images on does not have "jumbo frame" support, so the packet size is 1440 bytes. I thought this might be problem, but when I set the packet size to 1440 bytes at my desk, the camera works fine.

This may be more of a hardware question dealing with the cameras and network settings, but please let me know if you've dealt with a similar problem. Also, if you have a good idea for detecting and disposing of these noisy images, that might be a work around. Thanks,

gregoryj

[nikale]

Hi gregoryj,

Are you able to perform a basic Snap or Grab in MAX? Have you noticed any pattern as to when the camera sees the noisy image, or any patterns between the computers that work well vs. the ones seeing the noisy image?

- Kale

[Gregory]

Yep, snap and grab work fine* in MAX, LabVIEW program, and point grey software. I've been talking to point grey and the support asked if my cameras go through any switches. At my desk they do not, but in the lab they do. At 2 of 3 stations in the lab we have this problem of dropped frames. At 1 of them though, we do not, and that one actually streams four cameras at once! (at varying resolutions). Perhaps that one has a better switch or ethernet card.

When I get the chance I will go to one of the problem stations and wire the camera directly into the ethernet port to see if the problem goes away. This means removing network access, so it definitely wouldn't be a permanent fix...

*EDIT: When I say work fine, I mean that I can use them, but they do have the problem I've described of dropping frames. I haven't verified that snapping drops frames, that could take a lot of clicks.