VBAI Balser Ace Continuous Image Acquisition

[Nelson_Bridwell]

We are running VBAI on a fast PC through an Intel Pro/1000 port and jumbo frame GigE switch to a large number of Basler Ace GigE cameras.
Two of the cameras are inspecting a rotating part. They both have hardware encoder triggers wired to their input lines.

In order to capture a sequence of 9 images, we are using the continuous every image acquisiont mode with buffers set to the max of 10.

We assume that in this continuous mode these cameras will broadcast frames, nonstop, to the PC, consuming network bandwidth even for the gaps between successive inspections.

In order to conserve network bandwidth, should we turn continuous mode off after we have captured 9 frames by putting the camera in shaphot mode with a read/write camera parameters command?  Or is there a way that we can use the Number of Frames to have it automatically stop after 9 images?

The Basler users manual describes a number of low level Pylon SDK commands to control starting and stopping acquisition, but those are obviously not available from VBAI.

Thanks,

     Nelson

[Brad]

I tried using the camera's attributes for "Acquisition Mode" set to Single Frame and the "Acquisition Frame Count" set to 9, but it looks like the frame count only applies if the camera supports a "MultiFrame Acquisition Mode" and my Ace did not, so I don't think there's a good way to do it using publicly available camera attributes.You could do as you describe and change the cameras attributes so it's no longer continuous once you get the images you need. Another option would be to gate your encoder signal so the camera is only triggered when you want it to be (not sure how easy/feasible this is, but this would be the cleanest in SW side since you know every image is a valid one and you don't need to worry about discarding images). Another option is to throttle the camera bandwidth so it can't send data as quickly and doesn't take as much of the GigE bandwidth, and you can even use the "Frame Transmission Delay" attribute under Transport Layer to offset the two cameras so they aren't sending their images at the same time.

Hope this helps,

Brad

[BlueCheese]

What if you just dynamically change the trigger mode from the encoder line to a software trigger after you capture all the frames you want. Then you would change it back when you want to acquire again.