analog output & synchronization

[limpid]

Hi,

I am going to set up a firewire camera system controlled by labview. We already have ordered a M Series DAQ board. What the aim of my work is to acquire images sequentially at some frame rate, and output programmable voltages. Now I have two main questions:
1. can I use DAQ to output step voltages (e.g. 0V, 1V, 2V, 3V, 4V, ...)?
2. how to make the output of the DAQ synchronized with the image acquisition?

Is there anybody who would like to help?
Many thanks.

Rong

[SachaE]

Hi,
Unless the camera gives you a pulse out to say it's sent a frame, then timing this is going to be difficult.
If you could reverse your thinking however, and if the camera is capable of being triggered, then you could run a
hardware timed analog output, and use the AOUpdate output (PFI5, or P1.5 on the M-series) to trigger the camera. That way, every time you update the voltage, it will ask the camera for an image. So the frame rate would be controlled by the analog update rate.
The following page should help you out.
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/devzone.nsf/webcategories/36A76627B3D5505D8625685E00779A97

Thanks

Sacha.