Streaming Data between Smart Camera and FPGA?

[faisalm88]

Is there a way I can stream data between a smart camera (NI 1774) and a FlexRIO FPGA module (PXIe-7961R)? I understand that data from the smart camera can only come from a USB or an Ethernet connection, I intend to plug the camera to the PXI controller (PXIe-8135), the chassis I'm using is PXIe-1082 so the p2p data transfer at 8GB/s should be possible between the controller and the FPGA module.

As a note: The processing I'm trying to do is too computationally intensive so its not possible to do it on the smart camera itself. 

[E.Nakayama]

Hi faisalm88,

This is Emi from NI.

Unfortunately there is no direct streaming between smart camera and FlexRIO FPGA.

(It has to be smart camera -> controller --> FlexRIO FPGA board)

And thus I have a few suggestion for you.

If you can tell me what's your application (does it have to be smart camera? Is the "data" you are talking about image?) ,

I might can come up with even better solution.

1. Do not use smart camera.

The iamge quality of 1774 can be easily replaced with USB web cam.

You can connect the web cam to your PXI controller and transfer data to your FPGA board.

If you are using LabVIEW 2014 and newer, there is function to transfer image data to FPGA.

2. Do not use 8135

Assuming if you are using FlexRIO just to enhance image processing performance,

then if might be better to use CVS

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/ja/nid/212667

It has both FPGA and quadcore processor.

3. Stream image data: 1774 --> 8135 --> 7961R

Let me know what method you want to take

and I can describe them more in detail.

Emi

[faisalm88]

Hi EMi-san,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, the data I'm talking about are images.

- Option 1 is entirely viable and can be done, which function can I use to transfer image data to FPGA?

- What type of FPGA does the CVS system have? The algorithms we’re trying to implement are quite computationally intensive. It involves calculating several FFTs in parallel and regularizing data. Although it might be a potential solution I need to analyze further weather we can use it or not. With the PXI chassis it's always possible to add more FPGA boards and increase the number of resources available (depending on how much latency follows because of this). The PXI system further gives us breadth of expansion since it allows us to use GPGPUs if needed.

Also, I think NI PXIe-7976R with a Kintex 7 FPGA and 2GB of on board RAM might be better suited for such an application rather than PXIe-7961R, is that the most resourceful FPGA module provided by NI or do you have any other suggestions?

Faisal

[E.Nakayama]

Hi Faisal,

Thank you for looking into our products.

PXIe-7976 is theone with the most FPGA resource and transfer rate.

And I believe if FPGA resource is not sufficient with 7961R,

then CVS is definitely not an option, since its FPGA is not as much compare to 7961R.

To Transfer Image taken from USB Camera to FPGA,

Please see example:

"Image Processing with Vision Assistant on FPGA.lvproj"

You can find this example from Example Finder by typing Kywords "Vision"

You must have LabVIEW 2014 and higher to see this example.

if you are using one before that,

the best practice would be convert image into array of number,

and use FPGA FIFO to transfer the data.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Emi

[faizan123]

hey 

this is Faisal 

I have NI smart Camera 1742 available in university and I am doing a project using NI 1742 which is  object detection and avoidance , first i implement the algorithm on labView  for detection then guide the model to avoid any obstacle , i just want to ask is there any FpGa board in Ni Smart camera1742 and RT Processor like in myRio .