HALCON 10 Image Acquisition Interface for FlashBus MX Boards

This page provides the documentation about the HALCON image acquisition interface HacqFlashBusMX.dll for the Integral Technologies frame grabber boards of the FlashBus MX family. Registered customers can download the latest revision of this interface from the MVTec WWW server.

Revision: 4.0

System Requirements

• Intel compatible PC with Windows XP.
• Successfully installed FlashBus MX driver FlashBusMX.sys (version 3.30 or higher).
• Integral Technologies DLL FbusMX.dll (version 1.2 or higher).
  This DLL must be within your search path %PATH%. If you do not have this DLL, please contact Integral Technologies or the vendor from which you bought the frame grabber board.
• HALCON image acquisition interface hAcqFlashBusMX.dll or hAcqFlashBusMXxl.dll, respectively.
  If you have properly installed the interface, both DLLs should reside in bin\%HALCONARCH% within the HALCON base directory %HALCONROOT% you have chosen during the installation of HALCON.

Features

• Multiple cameras.
• Synchronous and asynchronous grabbing.
• Realtime grabbing (30 frames per second or 60 fields per second for NTSC).
• External trigger.
• Writing and reading LUTs.
• Sending or receiving TTL signals from the onboard pins.
• Programming the serial interface.
• Software control of brightness and contrast.
• Software control of the intensity of the red-, green-, and blue- channel (for RGB-signal).
• Adjustment of frame grabber specific parameters.

Limitations

• grab_data() and grab_data_async() not supported.
• Image cropping and scaling not supported.
• Multiple boards not supported.

Description

Parameters for open_framegrabber():

	Name		'FlashBusMX'		The name of the HALCON image acquisition interface.
	HorizontalResolution		---		Ignored.
	VerticalResolution		---		Ignored.
	ImageWidth		---		Ignored.
	ImageHeight		---		Ignored.
	StartRow		---		Ignored.
	StartColumn		---		Ignored.
	Field		'first', 'second', 'next', 'interlaced', 'progressive'		Specifies the alignment of the grabbed images ('first': grabbing starts with an even field, 'second': grabbing starts with an odd field, 'next': grabbing starts with the next available field). If you use a progressive scan camera say 'progressive'. Default: 'next'.
	BitsPerChannel		5, 8		Number of bits per image channel which will be delivered by the board via the PCI bus. Specifying 5 bits per channel is only allowed in combination with ColorSpace='rgb' and enables the 5-6-5 bit encoded RGB raw data transfer (reduced PCI bus load!). You will get an 8-8-8 three channel RGB HALCON image in this case, too. Default: 8.
	ColorSpace		'gray', 'rgb'		Specify the desired color space and thus the number of image channels of the resulting HALCON image. Default: 'gray'.
	Generic		---		Ignored.
	ExternalTrigger		'true', 'false'		Activate/deactivate external triggering. Default: 'false'.
	CameraType		'camfile', 'ntsc', 'pal', 'pal-large', 'rgb-ntsc', 'rgb-pal', 'rgb-pal-large', 'rs170-ntsc', 'rs170-pal', 'rs170-pal-large'		Specify the desired video signal: 'ntsc', 'pal' or 'camfile'. With 'camfile', the video type from the default camera configuration file (as specified in FBG.ini) is used. The additional 'rs170-' or 'rgb-' specifies an RS170 or RGB input. Without the prefix a RS170 signal is assumed. For the PAL norm the suffix '-large' leads to an image size of 768*576 pixels, whereas the normal size is assumed to be 760*570. Default: 'ntsc'.
	Device		---		Ignored.
	Port		0 - 5		The desired input port depends on the type of video signal you are using. The following ports are available for the different types: RS170: 0-5, RGB: 0-1. Default: 1.
	LineIn		---		Ignored.

Parameters for set_framegrabber_param():

	'bluebright'		0 - 63		Sets blue brightness value for RGB input. Default: 0.
	'brightness'		0 - 63		Sets value for brightness. Default: 34.
	'cameratype'		value		Specifies the camera type. Default: 0.
	'contrast'		0 - 63		Sets value for contrast. Default: 35.
	'filter'		'5 MHz', '10 MHz'		Sets the video low pass anti-aliasing filter.
	'grab_timeout'		timeout		Timeout for image acquisition in milliseconds. Default: 5000.
	'greenbright'		0 - 63		Sets green brightness value for RGB input. Default: 0.
	'misc_param_##'		value		Sets other than the above parameters; replace ## by the number of the parameter you want to set. For a complete list of the available parameters see the documentation of your FlashBus MX frame grabber board.
	'redbright'		0 - 63		Sets red brightness value for RGB input. Default: 0.
	'serial'		string		Sends a string to the serial port of the frame grabber board.
	'serial_setup'		'nBaud:nData:nParity:nStop: nBytes:nTimeOut'		Configures the serial port of the frame grabber board. Possible values: nBaud: 50, 110, 134, 200, 300, 600, 1050, 1200, 2400, 4800, 7200, 9600, 38400 nData: 5, 6, 7, 8 nParity: 0 (none), 1 (odd), 2 (even) nStop: 1, 2 nBytes: >="0" nTimeOut: >="0" Default: '9600:8:0:1:16:10'.
	'switch_camera_delay'		1 - 32768		The number of vertical blanks after switching between cameras connected to different ports. Make sure that the time needed to wait for the specified number of vertical blanks is smaller than the timeout for video synchronization (set by 'wait_for_sync'). Default: 1.
	'syncmode'		0, 1		If syncmode is set to 1 the decoder changes its method of syncing to a video source (may produce better results with certain video equipment). Default: 0.
	'trigger_signal'		'rising', 'falling', 'levelhigh', 'levellow'		Defines the expected type of input trigger. 'rising' ('falling') requires the external trigger to go low (high) and high (low) again before the next image can be acquired; in case of 'levelhigh' ('levellow') an image can be acquired during the whole time the trigger is high (low).
	'ttlio'		dword		Sets TTL level of the onboard pins. The setting is passed as a 32 bit value. The upper 16 bits are used as a mask, the lower 16 bits contain the bit pattern to be set. Only 8 bits are used. The pattern is as follows: UUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMUUUUUUUUVVVVVVVV (U: unused / M: mask / V: value).
	'volatile'		'enable', 'disable'		Grayscale (8 bit) only ! In the volatile mode the image acquisition interface buffers are used directly to store HALCON images. This is the fastest mode avoiding to copy raw images in memory. However, be aware that older images are overwritten again and again as a side-effect. Thus, you can only process one image while you grab another image. Older images are invalid!
	'wait_for_sync'		timeout		Timeout in ms to wait for video synchronization after switching ports. Make sure that this value is larger than the time needed by 'switch_camera_delay'. Default: 5000.

Parameters for get_framegrabber_param():

Additional parameters supported by get_framegrabber_param only. Note that all parameters supported by set_framegrabber_param can also be accessed by get_framegrabber_param. Furthermore, corresponding to the parameters supported by set_framegrabber_param, there may exist additional read-only parameters with the following postfixes:

• '_description': These parameters provide the tooltip of the corresponding parameter as a string.
• '_range': These parameters provide the minimum, maximum, stepwidth, and default values for the corresponding integer or float parameter as a tuple with 4 elements, e.g., get_framegrabber_param(..,'exposure_range',..) will return the output tuple [min,max,step,default]. Optionally, this tuple can also contain additional valid string values like 'auto' or 'manual'.
• '_values': These parameters provide the valid value list for the corresponding parameter as a tuple, e.g., get_framegrabber_param(..,'volatile_values',..) will return the output tuple ['enable','disable'].

	'libversion'		version		The version number of the FlashBus MX library FbusMX.dll.
	'revision'		revision		The revision number of the HALCON FlashBusMX interface.

Lookup Tables:

Lookup tables can be manipulated using the operator set_framegrabber_lut() and get_framegrabber_lut(). The FlashBus MX frame grabber boards use 256 entries per LUT, which are passed as an array of integers with a value range from 0-255. When using RGB input, three arrays are needed, in case of the 'RS170...' generic parameter only the red channel is used. Default: ramp with values from 0-255.

Release Notes

• Revision 4.0 (Dec 1, 2008):
  • HALCON 10 version of the interface (legacy only).
  • HALCON 9.0 version of the interface (included in HALCON 9.0 DVD).
• Revision 3.1 (Apr 22, 2008):
  • Added read-only parameters with postfix '_description', '_range', and '_values' to enable the easy parameterization via a generic graphical user interface.
• Revision 3.0 (May 15, 2007):
  • HALCON 8.0 version of the interface (included in HALCON 8.0 DVD).
• Revision 2.3 (Jul 27, 2005):
  • HALCON 7.1 version of the interface (included in HALCON 7.1 CD).
  • Speed-up for acquisition of RGB images (avoiding cache alignment failures when converting the interleaved image data into HALCON image objects).
• Revision 2.2 (Dec 10, 2004):
  • The query types 'bits_per_channel', 'camera_type', 'color_space', 'device', 'external_trigger', 'field', and 'port' for info_framegrabber provide now specific value lists for the corresponding parameters in open_framegrabber.
• Revision 2.1 (Apr 25, 2002):
  • HALCON 7.0 version of the interface (included in HALCON 7.0 CD).
  • HALCON 6.1 version of the interface (included in HALCON 6.1 CD).
• Revision 2.0 (Aug 16, 2001):
  • First official release.