CVS 1450 series image logging using VBAI

[jimbonic]

I have several image logging concerns regarding the CVS 1454 and 1455. I am trying to store the failed images of my inspection so that they can be analyzed later. Setting that up is very simple, however, the amount of time involved with that process is insanely long. My current inspection takes three images, does simple inspections on each, then makes a decision within 350-750ms (depending on 1454 or 1455). However, when image logging is enabled the process for each inspection is upwards of 3 seconds. This is way too slow for our application. Is there a way of increasing this speed? What image format does the CVS process fastest? Lastly, I had just read in a discussion forum that the amount of pictures or images to be stored can be sent to a host computer in order to save more images due to the fact that the CVS 1454 can only hold about 20 MB. Can I do this with the CVS 1454 and/or 1455 and VBAI? Or do I need to use outside resources? When I choose the destination for the images, I am limited to the CVS's memory only.

Thank you so much for your time

[Dan_Quinn]

Hi Jimbonic,

Thanks for using our discussion forums. I think the best way to do this is certainly to transfer your images to a host pc for processing. The best way to do this is through TCP/IP which is unfortunately not available in VBAI. Datasocket is one possibility, although is not as fast as TCP/IP for image transfer.

LabVIEW instead of VBAI is certainly one possibility, and we are also in the next release of VBAI (currently in Beta), there is an SDK that allows you to call entire pieces of code- I think this might be your best solution. Give us a call and we can talk about this in more detail!

Regards,

Dan
National Instruments

[jimbonic]

Thank you for getting back to me on that, however, I have two other concerns. The first is that I still don't know which image file type is the quickest for the CVS 1454 (png, tiff, bmp, or jpeg) to process, if there is one for that matter. I know I can increase the image compression to help with this. More importantly, is there a way for me to log only a selected image? Right now I am using three cameras to inspect one part. If there is a bad part, often times the inspection fails due to a feature missing on one of the three images. I know that you can save all images, only when inspections fail, or limit the amount stored, but this will log all three images rather than just the one that shows the failure. I ask because this consumes a lot of time and space. I need to be able to make some type of decision process that enables me to log only the images that have features missing rather than all three. I hope this makes sense. Again, thanks for your time and I appreciate your quick response.

[Dan_Quinn]

Jimbonic,

I thought about your system some more, and had another idea. You might want to try using an external firewire hard drive connected to the CVS. Writing to these drives is MUCH faster than trying to write to the CompactFlash on the CVS, which is honestly pretty slow.

Also, in regards to your question about what image type to process, you don't really process on a bmp or a png, but only use those types for storing the images. When you do the image processing in VBAI or LabVIEW, you're really just processing an allocated image buffer as opposed to a file.

Saving just failed images is certainly something that VBAI can do, although I'm a little confused as to how you want to separate just one image here. Tell me if I'm wrong, but here's how I see your application: You have 3 images upon which you are doing some inspection on a single object. If one of the images fails, then that object fails and you are currently logging all 3 of those images to file. Let's say just one of the images fails, therefore failing the inspection, you would like to log just that image that failed and not all three?

Regards,

Dan
National Instruments

[jimbonic]

Thanks again for taking the time to help me out. Yes, that is exactly what I would like to do in order to save space on the drive and time transferring the images. You got it. Will VBAI alone allow me to do this? We don't have LabView 7 or higher; just version 6i. You believe an external hard drive is the way to go? But then I would be consuming the already limited bandwidth, no? Let me know what you think when you have some time. Thank you.

Message Edited by jimbonic on 03-28-2005 11:03 AM

[Remzi]

Hi Jimbonic.

If you are planning to genereta/modify LabVIEW code created by VBAI 2.5 (current version) you need to have LabVIEW 7.0 or later and IMAQ Vision 7.1.

Best Regards,
Remzi A.
National Instruments