What's the difference between NI-DAQmx and NI-IMAQ?

[kjhhf3215]

I was not aware of NI-IMAQ until today when I was reading through the Installation and Troublshooting for IEEE-1394 Cameras on the NI website.  I'm having troubles getting my camera working and am not sure if it's a problem with my 1394 libraries, invalid DAQ drivers/libraries or...?  The camera works with the GUI in Coriander and it was working flawlessly on an old system (CentOS 3, libdc1394-1.1.0, libraw1394-1.2.0, NI-DAQmx 8.0).  I don't know much about the old system setup (i.e. kernel used) as there were insufficient records kept on it before the HDs failed.

How does NI-IMAQ compare to NI-DAQmx?  Do I need IMAQ installed to use our PCI-6220 DAQ for capturing image data?  We are using the PFI 0/P1.0 (pin 11) to supply our camera with a [i]sync out[/i] signal and get errors when integrating the DAQ with image capture (NI-DAQmx-8.0.1, buffer overflow errors.  This doesn't make sense because we tried to set our system up about the same as the old one and have not changed any of our code).  As mentioned, using Coriander alone with the camera works with no errors or warnings.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I don't understand what you are doing. The PCI-6620 is not an image capture device and DAQmx is not a driver for image capture.

[aNIta B]

So technically you could read in your camera with a DAQ card and build an array to convert the signal to an image.  For questions about image aquisition though, I would definitely suggest posting to the Machine Vision forum, where you'll likely have better luck.  As for your 6220- you definitely need NI-DAQmx to interface with that card (camera or no camera).  You can download the latest version of DAQmx 9.0.2. And additionally, you'll want the IMAQ driver to interface with your camer.  There are also some suggestions on this forum for setting that up in software. Like I mentioned before though- I'd recommend posting to the vision forum.

What specific buffer errors are you getting?  Have a great weekend!