Does USB Direct Show Interface to LabVIEW support 10 bit images?

[Derek.Mayer]

I assume that I'll have to use the 16 bit data type for my image. But, the effort is wasted if the USB interface doesn't support the additional resolution.

Thanks in advance,
Derek

[Scott_R]

Derek,

Yes, the NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras driver does support 16-bit images. This is discussed in the "Buffer Management" section of the NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras User Guide. You will have to use the 16-bit image data type to represent the image.

If you have any additional questions on this issue, please let me know.

Regards,
Scott R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[mulder6@gmx.de]

Which Direct Show mediatype the usb camera have to support, so 10bit images will work?

[BlueCheese]

Hi mulder6,

I believe Scott was incorrect in this 5 year-old post. Neither the old IMAQ for USB or the newer IMAQdx driver supports 10-bit modes via DirectShow. The reason is that (to my knowledge) there is simply no MediaType defined in the specification that corresponds to anything similar. This is likely due to the fact that DirectShow has its roots in media capture/playback, neither which have any reason to use higher than 8-bits per color plane since the increased range cannot be displayed.

To sum it up: if your camera uses any of the MediaTypes defined to be color, IMAQdx will give you an RGB32 image back. If the camera uses one of the palletized formats (RGB1, RGB4, RGB8) IMAQdx will give you a 8-Bit Mono image back.

Eric