Using Many USB Cameras in parallel - Bandwidth problem??

[Dreamer]

Hello,

I'd like to ask a question as we are starting to develop a new project and I'm not sure about potential system capability.

We need to acquire in parallel from 10 different cameras.

For budget reasons we selected uEye IDS USB camera 2048*1536 pixels, CMOS color.   Gigabit or 1394 cameras, with same resolution, are far too expensive...

We need to get 1 triggered acquisition per second from each camera (over a stopped parts).

It means we will collect 10 * 3 Megapixel images per second.

Each camera has 4MB ram onboard.  We will use a PC based on quadcore unit Dell system, 3 GB Ram and Vista Business OS.  Software will be LBV8.5, with Vision Dev. 8.5.

We have experience with IDS camera controlled by LBV and it works fine, but I don't know about handling 10 cameras in parallel.

Do you have any experience?  Do you see and potential system problem? Do you believe the trasfer rate is possible?

I thank you all very much for any feedback and suggest

Marco

[AndreaN]

Hi Marco,

normally it's very difficult to make benchmark of an application with USB camera and LabVIEW. In this case it's more difficult because there are many cameras in the same system. I post some links about USB camera and LabVIEW. I hope this will be helpful.

Simone

NI-IMAQ for USB Camera: http://sine.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id/5030 

Cameras Supported by NI Hardware: https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z000000P6COSA0&l=en-US

[Dreamer]

SImone, thank you for your reply..

My problems are basically two:

1- to understand if I can get a trasfer rate, over USB, of 10x3Megapixel in less than one second

2- to unsderstand if I can get 10 acquisition in parallel.

Looking at your link, it seems USB will not work in parallel, therefore I need to acquire in series..And this is the reply to point 2.   Is it correct?

Can you help on point 1?

Thank you in advance.

Marco

[Kyle_V]

Dreamer,

The NI-IMAQ for USB Cameras will probably not work here.  A better idea may be to use the LabVIEW driver that IDS has created for their uEye USB cameras.  While I've never used it, I've seen it working before.

Also, I would assume that IDS would know the features and limitations of their USB cameras and software: both the maximum transfer rate and the maximum number of cameras that can connect in parallel.

Kyle V

[Iskander]

Hi Kyle V

Excuse me

I have seen this drivers

The uEye USB drivers are worked only with USB cameras uEye.

It is very bad

Best regards

Iskander