Machine vision broadcasting problem, uncontrolleble listener

[SebastiaanNL]

Hello,

I have one firewire camera that records images and two seperate systems that have to process these images. I want to use broadcasting as the method to supply both processing systems with all the recorded images. Seperately, both systems work fine.

When I try to implement broadcasting to these systems, by making one system the controller and the other sysmtem the listener, I encouter problems with the listener. The listener will only recieve images correctly, when the video mode of the controller is set to "1600x1200 YUV422Packed". All other video modes result in scrambled images at the listener. Using YUV422Packed at a lower resolution, the right image is visable at the listener but the image is repeated to create a 1600x1200 image.

I think the problem is that the listener allways expects "1600x1200 YUV422Packed" images. I am not able to control the video mode setting of the listener, as far as I know. I identify the camera at the listener using a string with the hexidecimal serial number of the camera, peceeded by "uuid:".

Does anyone know a method to control the listener settings?

Regards, Sebastiaan.

[JohannS]

Sebastian,

FireWire cameras have two different modes: standard modes and partial scan modes. The partial scan modes are usually identified as Format 7 video modes. Are you configuring the camera, from the controller system, to run in a standard mode or in  a partial scan mode? Which camera are you using for the broadcast application.

Regards,

JohannS

[SebastiaanNL]

Hi JohannS,

Thank you for your reply.

I use a Marlin 201C camera from Allied Vision Technologies for the broadcast application. In the two seperate systems I want to apply broadcasting to, Format 7 is used as Video Mode. In the controller system the camera is configured to record images in mono8 pixelformat in the resolution of 1628x200, thus in partial scan mode. This results in images at the listener that look like the image in the attached file. These images sill have the resolution 1600x1200, and are totaly scrambled.

When I use the measurement and automation explorer and configure the camera in the standard video mode "1600x1200 YUV422Packed" and apply not camera configuring in the labview program (thus setting the camera to the mode configured in MAX) only then the images are recieved correctly at the listener in the broadcst system.

Regards, Sebastiaan.

[SebastiaanNL]

Hi,

The post has been up here for a week! Isn't there anyone who has experiance witch broadcasting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Sebastiaan.

[Luke H]

Our apologies for the delay, we were able to get ahold of an AVT camera today and have reproduced it.  I am working with the PSE and will let you know as soon as I know more.



Regards,
Luke Hargrove
SR 1011011

Message Edited by Luke H on 08-23-2007 06:51 PM

[JohannS]

Sebastiaan,

We have confirmed that the IMAQdx driver tries to use the default video mode when running as a listener. The default video mode is the first scalable format. If no scalable format is present, then the driver uses the largest non scalable format. For your camera, it seems that the default mode is 1600 x 1200 YUV422.

The listener should query the current video mode if the controller configured the camera away from the default video mode. We hope to correct this issue with an upcoming maintenance release. For now consider offer the following options:

1) Use the default mode on both controller and listener. Use IMAQ image to image to sample the desired region of interest on both processing stations.
2) Switch to using legacy NI-IMAQ for IEEE 1394 2.0.x driver. The legacy driver should not exhibit this broadcasting bug. You can switch the driver in MAX. Your code will require some modification for this workaround.

Hope this helps,

JohannS

[SebastiaanNL]

Hi JohannS,

First of all, I want to thank you and NI for the effort made to solve my problem. Unfortunately, both solutions you gave can not be implemented in software code at this point in the project. Since the only solution is to wait for an upcoming maintenance release, could you or anybody please tell me when to expect this? Also, would this maintenance release be a machine vision maintenance release or a maintenance release for Labview itself.

Regards, Sebastiaan.

Message Edited by SebastiaanNL on 08-30-2007 02:29 AM

[JohannS]

Sebastiaan,

This maintenance release would only apply to NI-IMAQdx which ships as part of the Vision Acquisition Software. The exact date and version of the maintenance release is unknown. A list of the most recent updates can be found on the Drivers and Updates web page.

JohannS