sharpVISION™ Cross-platform User Manual Programmable Digital Camera (Windows™ and MAC™) Copyright © 2000, 2006 Integrated Design Tools, Inc.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera Software Release 2.07 Document Revision October 2006 Products Information http://www.idtvision.com North America 1804 Miccosukee Commons, suite 208 TALLAHASSE FL 32308 USA P: (+1) (850) 222-5939 F: (+1) (850) 222-4591 llourenco@idtvision.com Europe via Pennella, 94 I- 38057 - Pergine Valsugana (TN) ITALY P: (+39) 0461- 53 21 12 F: (+39) 0461- 53 21 04 pgallorosso@idtvision.com Copyright © Integrated Design Tools, Inc.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera Table of Contents 1. PRECAUTIONS...........................................................................................5 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. CLEANING THE SENSOR ...................................................................................... 5 LASER ................................................................................................................ 5 CHECK CABLING ................................................................................................
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 8.1.6. 8.1.7. 8.1.8. 8.1.9. 8.1.10. 4 BLD Format...............................................................................................................30 MPEG Format ...........................................................................................................30 Multi-page Raw Format (MRF) .................................................................................31 Multi-page Compressed Format (MCF) ..................................................
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 1. Precautions 1.1. Cleaning the sensor IDT recommends that the sensor NOT be manipulated in any fashion. Clean the optical surfaces with filtered, compressed air and glass cleaner or distilled water. Use a cotton swab or lens paper. Do not use alcohol or other solvents as these may damage the optical coating and cements. 1.2. Laser Do not focus a laser beam on the sensor directly or by reflection, it can cause permanent damage to the sensor.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 2. Warranty IDT, Inc. provides warrants to the original purchaser that, from the date of delivery, the hardware components of the sharpVISION™ Digital Camera (the “Product”) will be in good working condition for a period of one (1) year on all parts. Should any of the components of this Product fail to be in good working order at any time during this warranty period, IDT, Inc. will either repair or replace those components at its factory at no additional cost.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 3. System Overview 3.1. Introduction to the sharpVISION™ Camera The sharpVISION™ digital cameras are high-resolution, high-performance cameras to be used in industrial and scientific applications that include machine vision, microscopy and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The sharpVISION™ cameras are built around the scientific grade SONY ICX sensors. The ICX are progressive scan, CCD interline solid-state sensors with a square pixel array.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera • Controlled exposure from 35 μsec up to 15 minutes in increments of 1μsec. • Fast inter-frame time (200 ns) for Particle Image Velocimetry applications. • 12 bit digitizer (8 and 12 image bit depth). These features make the sharpVISION digital cameras suitable for different applications: • Astronomy. • Microscopy. • Spectroscopy. • X-Ray Imaging. • Motion Analysis. • Biological Analysis. • Particle Image Velocimetry.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 3.3. Software Development Kit Upon the installation of the sharpVISION software package several options are available to the user. These options are easily accessed via the Program menu under the Windows Start button. The programs and associated files are organized under the IDT/sharpVISION folder. This folder includes the example programs and the associated documentation. The software components included in the sharpVISION Software Development Kit are listed below.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 4. Installing the sharpVISION™ camera This section specifies the minimum recommended computer requirements and gives the procedures needed to install the Camera Head, Camera Cable, Power Supply, I/O Cable, and software. 4.1. Minimum computer requirements PC MAC Operating System Windows 2000, Windows XP MAC OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) or higher Processor Pentium III or equivalent with 500 MHz processor.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 4.3. Software Installation Windows 2000/XP Before installing the software make sure that the computer has Windows 2000 or Windows XP installed as operating system. 1. Log into Windows with a username and password that has ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES. 2. Insert the sharpVISION™ VISION CD in the CD drive. If the computer is configured to AUTORUN, the installer will run automatically. If not, click on the Windows Start button. Select Run from the menu.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 4.4. Hardware installation The camera gets the necessary power from the computer via the fire-wire cable. If the power provided by the PC is not enough an additional power supply unit is included with the camera system package. The external power supply is only required when a laptop and/or a 6 to 4 pin cable is used. The external power supply is also required for camera models that incorporate an additional cooling module.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera IEEE-1394 Connectors Power ON/OFF Power Connector Trigger and Sync Control LED 4.5. Camera lens adapter The camera is supplied with a standard C-mount. Alternatively, a C to F mount adapter is available to interface with F-mount (Nikon type) lenses. Use Nikon lenses with a tilt/shift capability when imaging at an angle. As an option, mounting hardware for tilt/shift lenses by Canon is also available. Contact your IDT sales representative for ordering information.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5. sharpVISION™ stand-alone program 5.1. Overview This application allows the user to acquire, save/play-back image records, and control the camera in Single or Double Exposure modes. The GUI for the application is shown below. Using the Camera Control dialog box, the user may interactively select the camera operating modes as well as other parameters like exposure, binning, and so on.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.2. sharpVISION™ menu structure The X-Vision main menu bar contains the following options: File Camera View Help 5.3. File Menu The File menu contains the following options: • Save on the hard disk Images • Close the program and exit.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.4. Save images Each acquired sequence may be opened and saved in a different format. 1. From the main menu select File > Save Images… or 2. Click the Save Images button on the toolbar. 3. Click Browse... if you want to change the acquisitions directory. 4. Edit the name of the acquisition sub folder. 5. Edit the mane of the image prefix. 6. Select the file format, the start index, the stop index and the step.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.5. Camera Menu The camera menu on the main menu offers an alternative to using the buttons provided by the main toolbar, including the following options: 1. Record a sequence. 2. Stop play of images or Snap a single image. 3. Live play of images. 4. Playback the acquired sequence. 5. Toggle the camera settings dialog box. 6. Open the record settings dialog box. 7. Set a region of interest. 8. Acquire the background image.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.6. Camera Control The camera configuration parameters may be interactively changed by opening the camera settings dialog box. The user may set the camera in play mode and adjust the parameters. Exposure Time Use the f-stop buttons to select a new exposure value. The value is in microseconds Rate The current camera rate is updated any time a parameter changes. Contrast and Brightness Use the spin buttons to select new values of brightness and contrast.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera This parameter controls the speed at which the image data is read from the CCD. The supported values are: 20 MHz, 10 MHz, 5 MHz and 2MHz. Exposure Mode Use the drop-down list to select either Single or Double exposure mode. Trigger/Sync Mode The default state of the camera at start-up is in the Internal/continuous mode. In this mode the camera does not require a trigger input signal.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.6.1. Set a region of interest (ROI) The sharpVISION camera has a Partial Windowing capability that can be selected and set via the software interface. Using this setting a region of interest for the image that is less than the total available area of the sensor may be selected. This region can be interactively adjusted and can occupy any area of the sensor’s active pixels. 1. Click on the Edit… button on the Camera Control dialog box. 2.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.7. Record Settings The Record Settings dialog box allows the user to select the recording parameters. The images may be acquired directly to RAM or to the selected directory on the hard disk. When images are recorded they are streamed to HOST RAM. The maximum number of images that can be streamed at the video rate to HOST memory depends on the maximum system capacity and the number that the user allows.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera Enable automatic save… If this option is selected, the program stores the images to the hard disk immediately after the acquisition. Acquisition folder Name The parameter indicates the directory in the hard disk where the acquired images will be stored. Images name prefix Type the image prefix into the text box. Images File Type Use the drop-down list to set the image type format for archiving files to the hard drive of the computer.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 5.8. View Menu Use the View menu to magnify the image, restore the original size (100% zoom) or compute a zoom factor that fits in the window 5.9. Help Menu This menu contains support options and information including: e-mail tech support and software and manual updates.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 6. Appendix A - Troubleshooting Some common troubleshooting scenarios are listed in the table below: Symptom Possible Remedy Flip the switch at the back of the camera trying the alternate position. Camera LED not ON Try connecting the auxiliary power supply (not normally required if 6-pin IEEE1394 interface is used). Check all the cable connections. Check all the cable connections. Be sure to use IDTsupplied cables.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 7. Appendix B – Product Specifications 7.1. Camera Specifications 1500-EX specifications Total number of pixels 1434 x 1050 Number of active pixels 1360 x 1024 (1.4 million) Binning modes ROI (region of interest) Exposure Sensor type Pixel Size 1x1, 2x2, 8x8 From 1x1 to full resolution 10 µs to 15 min (1 µs increments) Sony IC285 progressive-scan interline CCD (mono) 6.45 µm x 6.45 µm Linear full well 18.000 e (22.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 7.2. Spectral Sensitivity NOTE: optional cooling reduces the thermal noise at long exposures. The dark current is reduced. 7.3. Lenses and mounts C–mount or F–mount lenses can be readily interfaced to the cameras. The standard lens is Nikon 50 mm. Other focal lengths can be provided upon request. For Scheimpflug imaging two mount types are available: a manual mount with a lens rotation adjustment and a motorized mount for remote focus.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 7.4. Trigger connector The camera generates image data that is sent to the host interface via the IEEE-1394 cable. The camera can be controlled from the host computer via this cable. The auxiliary power supply provides power in those cases where power is unavailable from the host computer. For example, when using a laptop computer as the host, the auxiliary power unit will usually be required to power the camera TRIGGER/SYNC Control.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 7.5. Cables Included with the camera there are two cables: IEEE 1394 Data Cable This is a IEEE-1394 6-pin interface cable. This cable can be plugged into either of the available ports at the back of the camera and it provides the connection with the 6-pin IEEE1394 port in the host computer. Certain computers have a 4-pin IEEE 1394 port. These ports can be used if they are OHCI-compliant, but you will require a different cable.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 8.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 8.1.3. PNG Format PNG is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and true-color images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera 8.1.8. Multi-page Raw Format (MRF) Multi-page Raw Format (MRF) is an uncompressed IDT proprietary file format. Multiple raster images are stored in a single file. The format is described below. Each MRF file contains a file header, an image header and an array of bytes that defines the image data bits. The image raster data is not compressed and stored in the file “as it is”. Both 8 bit and 16 bit data are supported. The file structures are the following: 8.1.8.1.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera nWidth: width of each image in pixels. nHeight: height of each image in pixels. nBPP: number of bits per pixels (8, 10 or12) userData: an array of 64 unsigned long that may be user by the user to store other information. 8.1.8.3. Data arrays The image header is followed by the images data. Images are stored contiguously in uncompressed format. 8.1.9. Multi-page Compressed Format (MCF) Multi-page Compressed Format (MCF) is a compressed IDT proprietary file format.
sharpVISION™ Digital Camera typedef struct _RCIMG_HEADER { unsigned long nSize; unsigned long nPages; unsigned long nWidth; unsigned long nHeight; unsigned long nBPP; unsigned long userData[64]; } RCIMG_HEADER, *PRCIMG_HEADER; // // // // // // size of this header number of pages/frames image width image height bits per pixel user data array Members nSize: size of the structure in bytes. It should be 84. nPages: number of images contained in the file nWidth: width of each image in pixels.