LabVIEW
Moticam 252B
The problem with cameras is always that they are often not easy to interface. Each camera has its own hardware and software interface and while there are some standards, this still doesn't make it easy.
A very popular interface is USB, but it has drawbacks such as it is either slow and not very suited for cameras (especially higher resolution) or it uses a specific high speed version that can or can not work on your particular port.
But that is just the hardware level. On the protocol level, USB is absolutely not just USB but the driver on the computer has to talk exactly the right language and even dialect to be able to receive images from a camera. And while there are some efforts to standardize things, they often end at fence of the company who came up with the standard. Each wants to have their own and not pay any sorts of royalties to someone else for use of their protocol. This also helps to keep the secrets of how the image is exactly processed on the camera more securely guarded.
Now if you look at the data sheet for your camera it says following:
- Twain Drivers
- Motic SDK
- Direct Show Drivers
Each of these is a driver interface that can be installed on your computer. How that driver talks with the camera is proprietary and not disclosed at all. Nobody but Motic knows the details and could talk directly to the camera, despite that it all goes over the ubiquitous USB bus.
Twain is an old standard. It is from Windows 3.x times, technically kind of arcane but when it works it actually works. These guys sell a Toolkit that can access Twain drivers, but I'm not sure if they still actively maintain that.
The SDK means that they provide you with driver interfaces, either in the form of .Net libraries or Windows DLLs, and the according documentation to access this. You can then use the LabVIEW .Net functions or the Call Library Node to access this driver interface. If it is .Net it is only tedious, if it is DLLs it is actually also very difficult unless you have a fair amount of C programming experience.
The DirectShow Driver is what will most likely give you some success. This is a Windows driver that plugs directly into the Windows DirectX framework and allows software which can access DirectShow drivers to acquire images. And the NI Vision Acquisition software, with its NI IMAQdx interface can do that. It's not free and there are even runtime licenses required when you plan to build executables for distribution to other computers, but it actually works and quite easily too.
If I would have to grade the three in terms of ease of use I would put it like this: (10 is best)
Twain
6 (setup can be tricky and it's really old legacy technology but when it works it works)
Direct Show driver with IMAQdx
9 (there are possible installation trouble as with all things software but it usually just works)
SDK
1 for DLLs; 2-4 for .Net libraries (be prepared for a long and painful path to success, not recommended for the faint at heart and you only make a chance with enough technical expertise)
