LabVIEW pulnix tm-6740cl high-speed imaging

Hi,
I'm working with a pulnix tm-6740cl camera, and my goal is to take high-speed photographs with it (multiple photographs per second.) I use MAX to modify the device settings, and then run the labview program. The LabVIEW program that I've attached should work, but I can't find what's wrong. It should take photos and then save them to a specified directory, but when I run it, it doesn't save any photos. I've heard that this may not even be the program at all, but that it may be that I'm trying to acquire too many photos at once and my computers memory can't handle it. If anyone could lend me some help, then that would be great!
Attachments:
LL Sequence2.vi ‏72 KB

Hi mb056145,
I downloaded your VI and had no problem running it. What happens if you attempt to save just a few images? How many images were you hoping to save? I was able to save 100 images without a problem. I tried to save 1000 and got a memory error. I would suggest placing a indicator on the output of the IMAQ Configure Buffer VI. This way you will be able to see any errors that come up creating the buffer. If I create say 1000 images I get an error for the IMAQ configure buffer and the program just ends.
Adam H
National Instruments
Applications Engineer

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Hi Bolin,
I'm using an NI PCI 1426 with NI-IMAQ, 18MB. Thanks for your previous help. I've actually worked on the program, and I got the camera to take multiple pictures. I also incorporated a part in the program that decodes the raw bayer image that this camera outputs.
I do have some other questions, though. First of all, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "trigger." I use the computer to take the pictures; MAX configures the camera, and LabVIEW sends the signals to the camera to take the pictures, and then saves them on the computer. Also, I know this is probably a bad question, but I'm not 100% sure where in MAX I can look to find out what framerate I'm acquiring at. I'd like to acquire pictures at the camera's maximum framerate, which I believe is somewhere over 1000fps. I tried many different methods in order to capture at the maximum framerate, and the best option seemed to be at the settings: manual shutter, shutter setting 0, 4X4 binning. However, my pictures were of extremely poor quality, and they were very dark.
Also, where can I go in MAX to change the shutter speed? I've tried changing the shutter control setting and the shutter setting number; I just want to verify that this is correct.
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I'm trying to build a triggered VI, which can acquire high speed images and save them (400fps 1200*300) using a ring buffer. First I allocate the buffers in the RAM, then I acquire the images and start saving at the same time. Since the saving can not keep up with the acquiring of the images, buffers are allocated before acquiring and saving is done paralel to the acquiring.
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wielrenner wrote:
AntonSundqvist wrote:
Hi,
To start, could you please specify the hardware you are using and what bus you use?
A Basler aCA2040-180km connected by Camera Link to a NI PCIe-1433 card
Are you using a PCIe 4x port? Up-plugging mat reduce the transfer rate on some motherboards.
I can also not see exactly what you want to do with the downmost part of the VI, could you explain this? You are first starting the IMAQ, then waiting two seconds and after this setting up some kind of timing; what kind of signal do you want to use to trigger the acquisition?
This is a program for myself to learn how the timing works. In a much bigger program the camera is triggered from another part of the program not in this way.
Okay, I see. The IMAQ part looks ok, but I do not understand what you want to do with the delay in the sequence structure and why you are using the same DAQmx VI twice.
Regarding the read buffer i think the get buffer VI works well, but why do you want to use one-shot mode and why do you only read one image at a time? I suppose you could increase the speed you save the images if you would read the whole buffer at once.
One shot is used to acquire the exact amount of specified images.
So moving the get buffer out of the for loop and use the images out in stead of the image out?
This might be one option, but I am not sure if it will help. The thing is that I have not understood where the bottleneck lies. I am thinking that you might have some issues due to the fact that you are acquiring the images at two places in parallell and this might cause some problems with the performance. You could try using an other programming structure, please see the attache VI for a quick example of what I am suggesting. I do not have access to the hardware here, but you could test if it improves the performance.
If I understand it correctly it takes a very long time to alocate the buffer and there will not be time to do this during acquisition.
Yes, I'm searching for ways to reduce this time. But I can't find any solutions besides saving in real time, which is not possible with the current hardware. It's a real problem when trying to aqcuire images for more than 2 minutes at 400fps.
/Anton

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Attachments:
forum JUly 18.vi ‏26 KB
error July 18.jpg ‏45 KB
error July 18 part 2.jpg ‏49 KB

I think there's a combination of things that could be contributing. I don't have time for a full explanation right now, here's some quick mods I did to the code you posted. Essential changes are:
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Hi, thanks for your input. I'm aware of the fact that my question is a bit OT, but I'm just looking for input from people with more experience and broader information in this area than I have myself.. I know people are here to talk about FCP, but I'm betting many editors and film makers who work with FCP will have more insight in this area than I do.
I've been reading every review I can find at dpreview, and also am watching as many test video examples I can find on the internet, mostly on vimeo because the ones on youtube look pretty awful. I just am reaching out to get some actual experience and advice from people who might give me pointers on what to look out for.
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Hi all.
I'm currently trying to capture images using a Mikrotron EoSens MC1363 camera at high frame rates >500fps. The issue arises when the region of interest (ROI) is decreased in the microtron software (of which screenshots are attached). The ROI must be dropped in order to increase the fps. When MAX is opened and configured to match the camera settings, and grab is initiated, the timeout error occurs. I've attached screenshots of the mikrotron software, max settings, the error and PC used. The OS is windows 7 64 bit. We use the camera config file for the mono version of the camera which i've been informed will cross over to satisfy the colour version we use. Any questions feel free to ask. Thanks.
Attachments:
errors.docx ‏3016 KB
997-EoSens 3CL-MC1362-Manual.pdf ‏1209 KB

Hi Dom.
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Hi all,
I am using PCI-6221 board with DAQmx to count the number of TTL pulses (which varies in its frequency between 0Hz to 10MHz) at a high speed (200,000 samples/sec.) and I am having a problem when the TTL pulse frequency drops below a certain level.
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CTR1 Gate is coming from CTR0 Out, which is 200kHz pulse train with 50% duty cycle, and CTR1 Source is the TTL signal that I am trying to count. At first, I thought that everything was working fine with the Source signal being at around 5MHz. Then, when I had the Source signal down below about 300kHz, I noticed that the program is taking longer than 1 sec. to collect the same 200k samples. Then, when I got the Source signal down to 0Hz, the program timed out.
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Just an interesting observation....
With Aperture and Tiger, Nikon D2x images shot with the smaller MP High Speed Crop (HSC) mode displayed 24 extra columns/rows (depending on orientation) of pixels; thus an image that should be 3216x2136 showed up in Aperture as 3240x2136. The extra pixels included several rows/columns of garish purple and green pixels than needed to be cropped. This is fine for one image, but not suitable for several hundred (such as shot at a sporting event). In addition to the lack of support for .xmp import, this is one of the most frustrating things about Aperture (for me at least).
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I doubt that it's the camera, as the issue doesn't arise on exported pics. That said, as there are only two posts on the forums (yours and the one you refer to on the Aperture forum) it's possible that a: this only arises in very limited circumstances or b: it's local to your computer rather than a bug proper.
Create a new account (systempreferences -> accounts) and make a library there. Import a few pics and see if the problem is repeated there.
Regards
TD

LabVIEW pulnix tm-6740cl high-speed imaging

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