VBAI vs LabView/Vision?

Question

I am designing a machine vision system that will use 16 GigE cameras, run on a dedicated PC, and will use standard edge and blob tools to perform a fairly routine set of inspection tasks.  I will not need to code any new special-purpose image algorithms.
Because of the large number of cameras, I am interested in using parallel processes/threads as much as possible.
Also, I need to trigger inspections via Ethernet/IP from a Allen Bradley/Rockwell PLC.
Would there be any obvious advantages to using the Labview Vision Development Module rather than VBAI?

Answer 1

Here are some things to consider (in addition to what Christophe said).
1. You had asked about 32 vs. 64 bit OS..even if you're running a 32-bit application, I would always recommend a 64-bit OS. This allows multiple 32-bit applications to each have up to ~4GB of memory, and if you're talking about 16 instances of VBAI running, they can each get up to this limit instead of on a 32-bit OS being limited to the total memory available being 4GB shared between all applications.
2. Because VBAI only allows 1 instance to run the Ethernet/IP Server, you could use LabVIEW to do the communication over Ethernet/IP and manage triggering/acquiring images in parallel and then use the VBAI API to send the images to the VBAI engines with a set image variable call so the VBAI only has to process the image and send the results back to your LV program. I really liked Christophe's idea of using a network trigger that the PLC controls, but I don't know if your cameras support network triggers or if your PLC would support sending a action command to trigger them...maybe the PLC can just trigger them directly with I/O lines...I assume this isn't an option since you're wanting to use Ethernet/IP to tell another application when to trigger them.
3. If all your inspections are exactly the same (except for which camera they use), VBAI unfortunately has a restriction that only one engine can open an inspection at a time, so you'd have to make 16 copies of the same inspection and have each VBAI instance load a unique copy of the same inspection.
4. If this is the case (all your processing is the same), and the inspection is straight forward, I think using LabVIEW to run everything in parallel with a rentrant VI that does the acquisition and vision algorithm might be the simpliest and fastest approach, but it might take longer to develop the code.
Hope this helps give you some more ideas, and let us know if you have more follow-up questions.
Brad