Image Acquisition in MERLIC

MERLIC provides the Image Source Manager (ISM) to set up image sources in one or multiple image source configurations for the image acquisition. The set up of the image sources is independent of the MERLIC Vision Apps. To access the acquired images in an MVApp for the image processing, the MERLIC tool Image Source is required. It serves as a kind of interface between the Image Source Manager and the MVApp. It can be added to the MVApp like any other MERLIC tool and allows to select which images shall be retrieved from the Image Source Manager.

In addition, MERLIC provides the tool Acquire Image from File. It can be used for testing purposes when creating and configuring an MVApp with test images from file. In contrast to the set up via the Image Source Manager, "Acquire Image from File" only offers some limited configuration options.

The MERLIC tool Acquire Image from Camera is deprecated. It is still available in the tool category Legacy to provide backward compatibility but it will no longer be maintained or updated in upcoming MERLIC versions.

General Information

Basic Terms and Concepts

Learn more about some basic terms regarding the image acquisition via the Image Source Manager and get information about the supported image file formats and trigger modes.

License Restrictions for the Image Acquisition

Get information about the license restrictions regarding the allowed number of camera devices used per MVApp.

Image Source Manager vs. "Acquire Image from File"

In the following, we give a short overview of the differences between the Image Source Manager and the MERLIC tool "Acquire Image from File". For more detailed information, see the documentation in the respective topics.

Acquiring Images via the Image Source Manager

  • Supported image sources:
    • Camera devices
    • Peripheral devices such as lighting or lens controllers
    • Images from file
  • Configuration of the image sources:
    • Independent from the MVApp, that is, image source configurations can be reused for multiple MVApps and an MVApp can be used with different image source configurations.
    • Possible on remote systems. This enables an easy deployment of the MVApp.
    • Possible during the process integration mode (MERLIC RTE) under certain circumstances, for example, to fix image acquisition errors.
    • No specific restrictions for camera settings.
  • Image sources are assigned to a specific configuration, that is, a set of image sources.
  • With each execution, an image is acquired from all image sources of the active configuration. In the process integration mode, an "AcquisitionDone" is emitted to indicate that the image acquisition via the Image Source Manager has finished.

Acquiring Images via

"Acquire Image from File"
  • Only for the acquisition of image files on the local system.
  • Configuration of the image source is bound to the MVApp. The image source must be configured anew in each MVApp.
  • With each execution, an image is acquired only from the image source folder that has been configured in the MVApp.