How to trigger camera and pulsed light source with PCIe-1427

[pbuerki]

Hello,

We have recently bought a NI PCIe-1024 frame grabber and the NI Vision Builder.

I am new to imaging applications and need some support to get started.

Application:

We have a camera viewing a scene that is illuminated by a pulsed light source (e.g., a strobe).

We want to use the PCIe-1427 as the master for triggering both the camera and the strobe light.

The first trigger (Ch 0) shall send TTL signals to the camera at 30 Hz (30 frames/second).

The second trigger (Ch 1) shall send bursts of pulses to the strobe light at e.g., 10 kHz. This trigger shall only be sending pulses every other frame, so that we can record alternating illuminated and dark frames in order to perform background subtractions.

I was trying to set up the trigger channels and create virtual channels in the Measurement and Applications Explorer, but apparently this is not possible.

Since this is a time critical application I would appreciate an example vi that sets up the two trigger channels and downloads the frames from the camera to get me started on this application. Thank you.

NI Software :  LabVIEW  version 10

NI Hardware :  Image Acquisition (IMAQ) device PCIe-1427 Driver Version :  NI-IMAQ 4.4 OS :  Windows 7

[Justin__D]

Hi pbuerki,

This quesiton would be better posted on the Machine Vision Board.  You would get more views and possibly a quicker response.

As for your question, I am including a link that may help.  This explains how you can generate a pulse with the frame grabber and send it to one of the camera control lines.  However, you can probably also get the required frame rate by changing the camera settings in MAX.

KnowledgeBase: How Can I Control the Camera Control Lines Without External Signals?

There are some good examples in the LabVIEW Help for sending triggers to an external device.  The LL Trigger Drive VI is located in the Example Finder under Hardware Input and Outptu>>IMAQ>>Signal Input and Output.

Regards,

[pbuerki · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Justin.

I will transfer this request to the machine Vision group as you suggested. I have looked at the link you sent me and made some (limited) progress. I can see the trigger signals on an oscilloscope, and the camera acquires images. However, I only got it to work for continuous pulse trains, not single shots nor bursts of pulses.

No need to reply to this. Thanks for your help.

Peter