Acquisition

With these tools, you can acquire images for your application:

Use an image file format that is suited for your purposes regarding speed, color and quality. For example jpeg may make it harder to detect edges while png may have longer reading and writing times.

Common Use Cases

Use this overview to find the right tool to acquire images depending on the available sources. Keep in mind that different configuration options are available depending on the tool.

Task	Tool	Usage
Acquire images from a file or a folder	Acquire Image from File	Acquire images from files. You can select a single image, a series of images, or a whole folder.
Get the images that were acquired from an image source via the Image Source Manager	Image Source	Get the images that were acquired from camera devices or image file directories using the Image Source Manager. This tool allows you to use image sources that have been set up independently from the MERLIC Vision App. This way, you can reuse image source configurations for multiple MVApps and an MVApp can be used with different image source configurations. Configuration The configuration of the image sources is done in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup. The configuration is also possible on remote systems and under certain circumstances even during the process integration mode. For more information see the topic MERLIC Image Source Manager (ISM).

Task

Tool

Usage

Acquire images from a file or a folder

Acquire Image from File

Acquire images from files. You can select a single image, a series of images, or a whole folder.

Get the images that were acquired from an image source via the Image Source Manager

Image Source

Get the images that were acquired from camera devices or image file directories using the Image Source Manager. This tool allows you to use image sources that have been set up independently from the MERLIC Vision App. This way, you can reuse image source configurations for multiple MVApps and an MVApp can be used with different image source configurations.

Configuration

The configuration of the image sources is done in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup. The configuration is also possible on remote systems and under certain circumstances even during the process integration mode. For more information see the topic MERLIC Image Source Manager (ISM).

License Restrictions

You may use as many image sources from file as you want no matter if you are using the Image Source Manager or the tool "Acquire Image from File". However, there are some restrictions regarding the image acquisition from camera devices:

The allowed number of used camera devices is restricted by the MERLIC license.
It is not permitted to acquire images from cameras using both the Image Source Manager and the deprecated tool "Acquire Image from Camera" within one and the same MVApp.

For all types of licenses applies: if an MVApp already contains an "Image Source" tool, it is not allowed to add the deprecated "Acquire Image from Camera" tool to the same MVApp and vice versa.

License Restriction for the Image Source Manager

The MERLIC license restricts the number of camera devices that can be configured in an active image source configuration. The restriction only applies to active image source configurations. This means, it is still possible to add as many camera devices as you like to an inactive image source configuration. However, an image source configuration can only be activated if the license restrictions are met, that is, if it contains only as much camera devices as allowed by the license. The following table shows how many camera devices may be configured in the active image source configuration for the respective MERLIC licenses.

MERLIC license package	Allowed number of camera devices in the active configuration	Description
Small	1	The active image source configuration may contain only one camera device. If the active configuration already contains a camera device, it is not possible to add further camera devices to the configuration. In addition, it is not possible to activate a configuration that contains more than one camera devices. However, the configuration may contain as many image sources referencing files and peripheral devices as you like.
Medium	2	The active image source configuration may contain up to two camera devices. If the active configuration already contains two camera devices, it is not possible to add further camera devices to the configuration. In addition, it is not possible to activate a configuration that contains more than two camera devices. However, the configuration may contain as many image sources referencing files and peripheral devices as you like.
Large and X-Large	4	The active image source configuration may contain up to four camera devices. If the active configuration already contains four camera devices, it is not possible to add further camera devices to the configuration. In addition it is not possible to activate a configuration that contains more than four camera devices. However, the configuration may contain as many image sources referencing files and peripheral devices as you like.

License Restrictions for "Acquire Image from Camera"

The tool "Acquire Image from Camera" is set as legacy and is provided only for backward compatibility. We recommend using the Image Source Manager for the image acquisition.

However, when using the deprecated tool, the license restrictions refer to the number of camera devices in an MVApp. For information, see the section License Restrictions in the tool reference of Acquire Image from Camera.