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Does IMAQ support 4-channel CCD cameras?

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Current color cameras have 3-channel, R,G and B, but the RGB image generated is 32 bit, meaning there are another 8 bits that are not used, correct?

 

I don't know how IMAQ driver puts all channels of pixel together into a RGB image? Does it support 4-channel CCD cameras? 

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What is a 4 channel CCD Camera? Could you tell as a product name?

 

Christian

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JAI new 4-CCD prism-based line scan camera --- JAI's LQ-200CL is a new prism-based 4-CCD color line scan camera providing simultaneous separate imaging of red, green, and blue, plus near-infrared light data.

 

Here is the link http://www.jai.com/EN/NewsEvents/News/Pages/LQ-200CL-4CCD-line-scan-camera.aspx

 

It has one more channel for NIR data. I am wondering if IMAQ supports this camera, and if it does, how does it handle the 4-channel data?

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The NI PCIe-1429, PCIe-1433, and PXIe-1435 framegrabbers will work with that camera. 

 

I actually had occasion to try that camera with the PCIe-1433 just a few weeks ago, so I know it works.

 

Are you interested in the IR data, or just the RGB?  If you want to grab the IR data as well, it's a bit trickier, but still straightforward.

 

-Daniel

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Yes, I want to grab all data possible from the camera. I mean IR is like bonus data, unless it slows down the acquisition significantly? Does it?

 

How did you make it work? Did you save all 4 channel into one image, or you saved two seperate images as RGB and IR? Thanks. 

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Dear Daniel,

 

Can you post a sample .icd file showing how to setup to acquire from all 4 channels with the PCIe-1433?

 

 

Robert Eastlund
Graftek Imaging, Inc.
Phone: (512) 416-1099 x101
Email: eastlund@graftek.com
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Solution
Accepted by topic author MengHuiHanTang

Hello Robert and MengHuiHanTang,

 

By default, NI-IMAQ framegrabbers in 32-bit RGB mode will ignore the alpha channel.  However, if you write your camera file as if the camera is outputting four 8-bit taps (monochrome), then the framegrabber will acquire the data into a single monochrome image, four times as wide.

 

If you choose the attached camera file (assuming 512 pixels high and 2048 RGB pixels wide, 8192 monochrome pixels wide), then a single image from the framegrabber will have the red, green, blue, and alpha planes of the image side-by-side, as in the attached .png (each color plane from the camera is outputting a constant pixel value).

 

You could also interleave the RGB, and alpha planes by changing "NumCameraXZones" to 1 and "NumCameraTapsPerXZone" to 4 and acquiring again (you may need to refresh and/or revert if you're using MAX).  This would put the red, green, blue, and IR pixels side-by-side in the image.  Your image would still be 4x wide.

 

The trick is that the acquired image is monochrome, but you can definitely still get all the data.

 

(This is kind of tough to explain without a whiteboard.  Let me know if that made sense.  🙂

 

 

I believe that the JAI camera you referenced earlier is a linescan camera... you'd need to change the "ScanType" in the Camera File from "Area" to "LineScan", and you may need to adjust the size of the image to acquire from that camera.

 

Let me know how that works.

 

Robert, do you see value in DMA-ing the alpha plane into a regular RGB image?  I don't think that there's a way to pull the alpha plane from a color image in LabVIEW, but I could be mistaken.

 

-Daniel

 

P.S.  The forum wouldn't let me upload a .icd file (unknown extension).  Download the .txt file, and rename it on your hard drive.

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Dear Daniel,

 

This is very much appreciated.  I am expecting a JAI 4-CCD linescan to arrive here shortly, and it looks like we will be able to get going in the right direction.  I will add any .icd files or useful information that we come up with to the thread.

 

-Robert

Robert Eastlund
Graftek Imaging, Inc.
Phone: (512) 416-1099 x101
Email: eastlund@graftek.com
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Thanks very much. That is definitely good news so we can go ahead and order that line scan camera. 

 

The only puzzle is why those four planes were put side to side instead of one 32-bit image?

 

But that is trivial question any way. The truth is all 4 channels are saved for processing now. 

 

Thanks again. 
 

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Just since you're curious...

 

The reason is that in a normal RGB acquisition, the alpha channel is ignored (normally, a Base RGB camera only has connections for 24 bits).  You have to trick the framegrabber into thinking that it's actually got 32 bits of real data.

 

Glad that helped.

-Daniel

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