image acquisition using third party framegrabbers

[Leeser]

I wish to use a Leutron Vision PicPort-color framegrabber to import images into an image analysis vi. However, this is not a NI supported framegrabber. Is there a way of doing this? 

Regrads,

Leeser

[SachaE]

Hi,

  making the interface to the framegrabber shouldn't be too much of an issue, since I'm sure the manufacturer has provided an API and instructions to talk to that framegrabber to retrieve an image. If Leutron Vision have provided a LabVIEW set of VIs to do this acquisition, then they've probably made it compatible with the LabVIEW image type.

If they haven't, then without knowing what format that image comes back in however you're not going to be able to translate it to a LabVIEW image.

I'm attaching a presentation we've done a couple of times in the past to illustrate the concept of playing with a LabVIEW image in a DLL (examples use LabWindow/CVI to demonstrate this).

Essentially you're going to need to move the image returned from the framegrabber into the LabVIEW image, and the easiest way of doing this is inside a DLL call.

If you haven't already bought the framgrabber, you could see if National Instruments do one that would match to your camera, and requirements?

Even if you have already bought it you could discuss with your internal sales engineer the idea of trading it in - might not be an option, but worth asking. Even if it can't be traded in, then the cost of development time might exceed the cost of buying an National Instruments framegrabber (as long as we have one that supports your camera!)

Hope that helps.

Sacha Emery
National Instruments (UK)

[Leeser]

Thanks Sacha,
I have since asked Leutron Vision do they have their own LabVIEW drivers but unfortunately they don't. They did say that as dll's can be called within LabVIEW that their software can be called in this way.

As the camera and framegrabber we are using are "inherited" from an old project and are using just for quick setup purposes and will not be the end configuration I will be looking at firewire hardware soon.

Thanks for your presentation and your advice,

Regards,

Lee

[Kyle_V]

Leeser,

I'm just curious; is there a particular reason you are using this particular Leutron frame grabber?  There must be a special feature on the board makes it worth writing an entire LabVIEW driver.  I hope everything works out.

KyleV

[Leeser]

Hi Kyle,

The simple reason we are using it is that we have it, a "gift" from another group who are no longer using it. As we are in the very early stages of a project we're just making simple tests but yes, a NI supported framegrabber etc is definitely  a better option as more time will be spent trying to import images rather than working on the project...trying to convine the beancounters is another job!!!!


Leeser