HALCON 9.0 Image Acquisition Interface for Baumer FWX, FWXC, and TXF Cameras

This page provides the documentation of the HALCON BaumerFCAM interface for Baumer IEEE 1394 camera series FWX, FWXC, and TXF. 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 2000 (SP4) / XP (SP1) / Vista and OHCI-compliant IEEE 1394 adapter card.
• Successfully installed Baumer Optronic Firewire driver (version 2.0.0.0 or higher).
• Baumer Optronic Firewire access DLL FxLib.dll (version 5.0.4.0 or higher).
  This DLL must be within your search path %PATH%. If you do not have this DLL, please contact Baumer Optronic or the vendor from which you bought the Baumer Optronic driver.
• HALCON image acquisition interface hAcqBaumerFCAM.dll or hAcqBaumerFCAMxl.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

• Supports IEEE 1394-based Baumer Optronic camera series.
• Synchronous and asynchronous grabbing.
• External camera triggering.
• Realtime image format switching (e.g., binning modes).
• Software control of a variety of camera parameters.
• Support of image cropping, brightness correction, and white balancing.
• Setting of LUTs.

Limitations

• Image cropping (partical scan mode) cannot be applied together with binning modes.
• Bus reset is not supported.
• grab_data and grab_data_async not supported.

Description

Parameters for open_framegrabber():

	Name		'BaumerFCAM'		The name of the HALCON image acquisition interface.
	HorizontalResolution		---		Ignored.
	VerticalResolution		---		Ignored.
	ImageWidth		0, width		The width of the desired image part ('0' stands for the complete image). Default: 0.
	ImageHeight		0, height		The height of the desired image part ('0' stands for the complete image). Default: 0.
	StartRow		0, row		The row coordinate of the upper left pixel within the desired image part ('0' obviously results in delivering the complete image). Default: 0.
	StartColumn		0, column		The column coordinate of the upper left pixel within the desired image part ('0' obviously results in delivering the complete image). Default: 0.
	Field		---		Ignored.
	BitsPerChannel		8, 10, 12		The number of bits per channel. By specifying a value greater than 8 the grabbed images are delivered as uint2 images. Default: 8.
	ColorSpace		'gray', 'rgb', 'default'		Color space of the resulting HALCON image. 'default' means to adopt the supplied camera color space. Default: 'default'.
	Generic		---		Ignored.
	ExternalTrigger		'true', 'false'		Activate/ deactivate external triggering. Default: 'false'.
	CameraType		---		Ignored.
	Device		'serial_number', 'default'		The serial number of the desired camera device. You can obtain the serial numbers of all available cameras by the 'info_boards' parameter of the info_framegrabber operator. If 'default' is specified the Port parameter is used to specify the desired camera. Default: 'default'.
	Port		0, 1, ...		The number of the camera as found on the IEEE 1394 bus if the parameter Device is set to 'default'. Default: 0 (searches for the first camera).
	LineIn		---		Ignored.

Parameters for set_framegrabber_param():

Note that most of the following parameters (and also the valid parameter values!) depend on the capabilities of the used camera. Furthermore, the default values may depend on the current camera settings.

	'brightness_correction'		'true', 'false'		Enables/disables the brightness correction (only necessary in combination with binning modes).
	'continuous_grabbing'		'enable', 'disable'		Enables/disables the continuous grabbing mode. If the continuous grabbing mode is enabled, the camera grabs all the time. In this mode the operator grab_image does not grab synchronously, but behaves similar to grab_image_async. Using this mode you can achieve full frame rate. If the continuous grabbing mode is disabled, the camera is set to single frame capture by using the software trigger mode. Please note that this parameter influences the 'external_trigger' setting. Default: 'enable'.
	'do_force_trigger'		---		Forces the camera to snap an image when the camera is in trigger mode ("software trigger").
	'dual_output'		'true', 'false'		If set to 'true', the dual readout of the camera is enabled (when available).
	'external_trigger'		'true', 'false'		Enables/disables the trigger mode.
	'flash_invert'		'true', 'false'		Specifies whether the flash signal is inverted.
	'flash_mode'		'enable', 'disable'		Enables/disables the flash mode.
	'gain'		value		Sets the desired gain value of the camera (specified as a float!).
	'grab_timeout'		msec		Specify the desired timeout (milliseconds passed as a long) for aborting a pending grab. -1 means to abort never. Default: 5000.
	'image_format'		'format'		Specify the desired image format. The supported image formats of the camera can be requested by using the 'image_format_values' parameter of the get_framegrabber_param operator.
	'image_height'		-1, min ... max		Specify the desired height of the grabbed image. The value -1 means to adopt the maximal possible image height.
	'image_part'		[row1, col1, row2, col2]		Specifiy the upper left (row1, col1) and lower right (row2, col2) corner of the desired image part. Note that the image width will be adapted to a value which is divisible by 4; in addition, in case of color images the upper left corner will be adapted to a value which is divisible by 2. The value -1 means to adopt the minimal (or maximal, respectively) possible value.
	'image_width'		-1, min ... max		Specify the desired width of the grabbed image (the value will be adapted to a value which is divisible by 4). The value -1 means to adopt the maximal possible image width.
	'offset'		min ... max		Specify the black level offset of the camera.
	'shutter'		usec		Specify the desired shutter value of the camera (microseconds passed as a long).
	'shutter_mode'		0, 1, 2, 3		Specify the desired shutter mode of the camera (passed as a long): 0: leaves current state (default mode of camera) 1: rolling shutter mode 2: sequential shutter mode 3: overlapped shutter mode
	'start_async_after_grab_async'		'enable', 'disable'		By default, at the end of grab_image_async a new asynchronous grab command is automatically given to the acquisition device. If the parameter 'start_async_after_grab_async' is set to 'disable' this new grab command is omitted. Default: 'enable'.
	'start_column'		0 ... max		Specify the column coordinate of the upper left corner of the image part.
	'start_row'		0 ... max		Specify the row coordinate of the upper left corner of the image part.
	'test_image'		'true', 'false'		If set to 'true' each succeeding image grab will deliver a test pattern.
	'trigger_signal'		'rising', 'falling'		Sets the trigger polarity and distinguishes whereas the rising or falling edge triggers the camera. Default: 'rising'.
	'volatile'		'enable', 'disable'		Grayscale 8bpp only! In the volatile mode the two image 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!
	'white_balance'		'true', 'false'		Enables/disables the automatic white balancing.
	'white_balance_factors'		[r, g, b]		Specify the three scaling factors (float values!) for the red, green, and blue channel. Note that this setting disables the automatic white balancing.

Parameters for get_framegrabber_param():

Additional parameters supported by get_framegrabber_param only. Note that all parameters supported by set_framegrabber_param except the ones with prefix 'do_' 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'].

	'camera_model'		model_name (string)		Model type of the connected camera.
	'camera_serial_number'		serial_number (string)		Serial number of the connected camera.
	'camera_vendor'		vendor_name (string)		Vendor name of the connected camera.
	'frame_number'		frame_number (integer)		Number of the current frame.
	'image_available'		0, 1		Returns the status of the last asynchronous grab command. The value 1 means that the image is already acquired and thus can be fetched by grab_image_async without delay. Note that this parameter is especially useful in combination with external triggering.
	'revision'		revision (string)		The revision number of the HALCON BaumerFCAM interface.

Lookup Tables:

Lookup tables can be set using the operators set_framegrabber_lut. The BaumerFCAM cameras use 4096 entries per LUT, which are passed as an array of integers. When using RGB input, three arrays are needed, in case of monochrome cameras only the values for the red channel are used.

Release Notes

• Revision 4.0 (Dec 1, 2008):
  • HALCON 9.0 version of the interface (included in HALCON 9.0 DVD).
• Revision 3.5 (Nov 27, 2008):
  • Fixed bug in external triggering in case of synchronous grabbing via grab_image.
• Revision 3.4 (Jun 5, 2008):
  • If the parameter 'external_trigger' was set to 'true', the continuous grabbing mode was not disabled automatically and vice versa. This inconsistency caused sporadic timeouts when acquiring images. This problem has been fixed.
  • Added parameters 'start_async_after_grab_async' and 'frame_number'.
• Revision 3.3 (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 3.2 (Jan 29, 2008):
  • Bugfix in get_framegrabber_param('image_available') (in case of the 2^16 frame counter wraparound, the output parameter Value never returned the value 1).
• Revision 3.1 (Jul 27, 2007):
  • Adaptation to FxLib version 5.0.4.0, which supports also the Baumer TXF camera series.
• Revision 3.0 (May 15, 2007):
  • HALCON 8.0 version of the interface (included in HALCON 8.0 DVD).
• Revision 2.5 (Feb, 20 2007):
  • New parameters 'continuous_grabbing', 'image_available' and 'shutter_mode'.
• Revision 2.4 (Aug 14, 2006):
  • Adaptation to FxLib version 5.0.3.70.
  • New parameter 'dual_output'.
• 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 (Sep 23, 2004):
  • Bugfix in repeatedly initializing multiple cameras.
  • Bugfix in setting parameters 'start_row' and 'start_column'.
  • New parameter 'do_force_trigger'.
• Revision 2.1 (Aug 12, 2004):
  • New parameters 'flash_invert' and 'flash_mode'.
• Revision 2.0 (Jul 9, 2004):
  • First official release.