Hardware trigger and Synchronisation for three cameras - Master Slave setup

[BinhLe]

Hi there,

Please someone can help me on this.

The goals: create a labview program to

- Have three camera to caputure images at the same time continously and the delay between the cameras must be minimal => Master Slave hardware trigger was chosen.

- Capture images using the three cameras every x second (i.e. 1s, x can be changed)

- Save the images into HDD.

Hardware setup:

- Three camera: IDS UI-5360CP Mono

https://en.ids-imaging.com/store/bu-5360cp.html

- Wiring digram for Master Slave : https://en.ids-imaging.com/application-notes.html?file=tl_files/downloads/support_notes/AN_AB.1.0030...

Software installed:

- IDS software suite (Full), NI Labview 2015, Vision Acquisition Software and GenICam

What I've got so far:

- When I opened Measurement & Automation Explorer => My System => Devices and Interfaces => UI536xCP.... The Acquisiton Trigger function is not available. Therefore, Labview can not hardware trigger the camera. The software trigger works fine on Labview program.

- I managed to use the IDS software suite to hardware trigger the three cameras to capture images at the same time (Falling Edge mode).

Please can you advise how to achieve the goals?

Thank you very much for reading this.

[GeorgeAlex]

SR 2536146

Dear BinhLe,

Thank you very much for your post. I am an NI Applications Engineer and I will be helping you with your request.

Using the configuration in the PDF, of the Master/Slave Hardware Trigger, will enable you to trigger all cameras simultaneously. Using LabVIEW you can also specify the rate of acquiring images as well as saving the images into an HDD. Have you written any code so far, to enable this functionality? If yes, it would be really helpful if you could upload it here.

From what I understood you can see your camera in NI MAX but you cannot find the Acquisition Trigger Function. Do you have the latest NI iMAQdx drivers installed? LabVIEW can hardware trigger cameras in general. Can you send me a NI MAX report so I have a clearer picture of the issue you are facing? You can do that by following the steps on the link below:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/DDF39729A407BFC1862578F7007807A3?OpenDocument

We might be able to work this functionality through the camera file.  A camera file is a file that allows MAX and your National Instruments Software to interpret the information it receives from your camera. The following link has useful information to help you with.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/05DCE3868362783586256FC8004F123C

If there is already a camera file the following link will help you find its location.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/FDA97BE2452830CF86256DBA007A70D8?OpenDocument

I am looking forward hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[BinhLe]

Hi George Alex,

Thank you very much for your reply.

Please find the attached for your required information.

For the NI iMAQdx drivers, I run the NI update service and everything is up to date. I searched for the camera file by following the link you provided but IDS brand camera file was not available.

The 3rd attached file is the labview file that I used to test the trigger function. It worked fine if I set the trigger mode to software but it does not work when I change it to HI_LO or LO_HI. Maybe I need to generate Rising Edge/Falling Edge signal in the program to trigger the camera? In the IDS camera suites software, with the Master Slave setup, I can use Rising Edge then Falling Edge to trigger the 3 cameras to capture pictures at the same time.

One thing I am not sure if it affects the software functionality. We do have NI PXIe 1071 but I am using a normal computer equiped with the mentioned software. The reason is that the PXI is not always available for me to continuously do experiment on the camera systems (other reseachers are using it as well). Do I need to do the experiment on the PXI or any computer with necessary software will do?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Binh

[GeorgeAlex]

Dear BinhLE,

Thank you very much for your post. From what I can see the NI iMAQdx drivers are up to date with your software. Do you think you could send me also a MAX Technical Report? To do so, please follow the steps outlined in the following link;

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/271F252B4EF0A2E0862570E70056A1E4

After doing some research I have found some previous threads that will probably be useful for your application. The last two links are especially helpful if you have not come across them yet.

Acquiring from GigE Vision Cameras with Vision Acquisition Software - Part II

http://www.ni.com/tutorial/5750/en/

Triggering GigE Camera with Hardware Trigger

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Triggering-GigE-Camera-with-Hardware-Trigger/td-p/3137853

Synchronize multiple GigE Vision cameras with a hardware trigger

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Machine-Vision/Synchronize-multiple-GigE-Vision-cameras-with-a-hardware-trig...

Triggering Gige camera on external analog signal (ttl)

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Triggering-Gige-camera-on-external-analog-signal-ttl/td-p/2109858

Please have a look on these previous posts and I am confident that they will assist you. I would recommend exploring some of the VI’s attached to these posts. I am looking forward hearing your progress.

Kind regards,

[BinhLe]

Hi George Alex,

Thank you very much for your assistance so far.

I have read the links you provided and tried the attached VI files. I still have not got the hardware trigger working yet. There are two possible reasons:

1. Taking the VI file ATV.V1 in the last link to discuss. I used that file to test the camera. If you see the attached picture (Figure 1), I can not set the trigger mode on. When I left click the IMAQdx icon in TriggerSelector, TriggerSource, TriggerMode, the Trigger source/mode are not available to select (I did select the camera beforehand). If the trigger mode can not be set on then the camera can not take hardware signal?

2. Master Slave setup: back in to the IDS software suite, the trigger signal (Rising Edge then Falling Edge signals) were generated by the software and transfered via the ethernet cable to trigger the three cameras (See Figure 2, data + IO command). With the sample VI files in the links you provided, I did not see any part of the code generating that kind of signals and send them to trigger the cameras. Do these files use an external hardware to generate the signal to the camera? How can I generate the Rising Edge/Falling Edge signal by using Labview program and trigger the camera?

The report is in the attachment as required.

I look forward you hearing from you soon.

Thanks again and best wishes,

Binh.

[GeorgeAlex]

Dear BinhLe

Thank you very much for your reply. When you refer to Hardware Triggering, it is when an external source generates a signal (most of the time TLL) to trigger the cameras. What you are referring to is Software Triggering since you wish to generate the trigger signal in the software and then to be transferred to the cameras. Also from the Master/Slave Hardware Trigger diagram, the signal in not transferred though the Ethernet cable, but through a GPIO or you can utilize a Flash as also illustrated.

For your first question, I would recommend trying to write your own VI, similar to what the link provides in order for you to be able to properly configure the property nodes as you wish. However, keep in mind that the ATV.vi works only if you are using one camera. Having said that, on the VI that you will build you will have to initialize all cameras. I cannot tell you the exact block diagram that you have to create because it depends on the network topology you use for your cameras. As you will also read in the following link IMAQdx supports several topologies.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/EC76AC9B636C6B63862575480003BBFF

I would recommend you looking for articles that show how software triggering with several devices can be implemented. In your block diagram you will have to configure one camera to send a trigger signal and then also configure the two other cameras to receive the triggering signal.

Kind regards,

George

[BinhLe]

Hi George Alex,

Thank you for being patient 🙂

The Master Slave Setup I am using does not use external hardware to generate the trigger signal. The way it triggers the three camera was using flash output in the master camera to trigger the master + 2 slave cameras via GPIO (more detail can be seen in the diagram in https://en.ids-imaging.com/application-notes.html?file=tl_files/downloads/support_notes/AN_AB.1.0030... This flash output was genereated by IO Command carried by ethernet cable.

I have recently obtained ueye .NET interface from IDS (the camera supplier). With this interface, I am able to access all the functionalities of the cameras (Labview does not have full access to these functionality without this interface). As I am very novice to labview programming so the progress is quite slow.

I will update on the progress accordingly.

Best wishes,

Binh.

[GeorgeAlex]

Dear Binh,

Thank you very much for your post. You can also use .NET libraries in LabVIEW.

I can understand that your progress is quite slow. I would recommend using the online sources that NI provides for you to become more familiar with graphical programming and LabVIEW's functionalities.

Kind regards,

George