Cognex CogAcqFifo

Before using a Cognex CogAcqFifo camera, the ‘Cognex x64 Drivers -> GigE Interface’ must be installed. On all LAN adapters with a Cognex CogAcqFifo camera, the ‘eBUS Universal Pro Filter Driver’ must be activated.

Hint

Depending on the camera type, certain parameters are shown or hidden.

Hint

For a detailed documentation see also: ‘%VPRO_ROOT%/Doc/en/VisionPro.Documentation.chm’.

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General settings

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  1. General Settings: Image Source Editor

  2. Toolbar Play Button: Pull in single image from camera. The image is displayed in the window ‘LastRun.OutputImage’ (9).

  3. Toolbar Camera Button: Switch camera to live mode (continuous image capture). The image is displayed in the window ‘LastRun.OutputImage’ (9).

  4. Camera List: Selection list of all Cognex CogAcqFifo cameras.

  5. Video Formats: Pixel format in which the camera image is to be transmitted. Depending on the camera type, the following pixel formats can be set:

  • Mono8/10/12/14/16 : Gray scale image with 8/10/12/14/16 bits per pixel

  • BayerRG8/12 : Color image in red-green Bayer pattern with 8/12 bits per pixel.

  • RGB planar : Color image with red-green-blue pixels with 8 bits per pixel.

  1. Initialize Acquisition: Connect to camera and initialize image acquisition.

  2. Image recording parameters

  • Exposure: Exposure time in [ms].

  • Brightness: Image brightness.

  • Contrast: Image Contrast.

  • Timeout: Maximum image recording time in [ms].

  1. Flush Fifo: Remove all images from the ring image buffer of the driver.

  2. LastRun.OutputImage: Display the last image taken.

Flash and trigger settings

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  1. Trigger Enabled: Enable trigger mode of the camera.

  2. Trigger Mode:

  • Manual: Manual Software Trigger. Triggered by the software when an image capture is started.

  • Free Run: The image acquisition system captures images at the highest allowable frame rate.

  • Hardware Auto: Image acquisition is started via the external trigger signal at the camera input.

  • Hardware Semi-Auto: Image acquisition is armed via the software and then started via the external trigger signal at the camera input.

Image Acquisition Parameters

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  1. OriginX/OriginY/Widht/Height: Selected image area. Position of the upper left corner, width and height.

  2. Output Pixel Format: Pixel format of the image returned by this image source. The original image from the camera may be converted in the process.

  3. ROI Mode:

  • Automatic: The ROI parameters for the image area (1) are automatically adjusted to the requirements of the camera (hardware limits or modulo requirement). The image is then cropped to the set ROI by the software.

  • Manual: The ROI parameters for the image area (1) are written to the camera without automatic adjustments.

GigE Settings

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  1. Camera Information: General information such as model, serial number, or firmware version of the camera is displayed here.

  2. Feature Access: Direct access to camera functions and parameters.

  • Feature: Name of the camera functions or camera parameter (name of the ‘GigE Vision XML Feature’).

  • Value: Parameter value

  • Read: Read parameter value from the camera.

  • Write: Write parameter value to the camera.

  • Execute: Execute command if the ‘Feature’ is an ‘ICommand-Node’ (e.g. “AcquisitionStart”).

  1. Transport Timeout: Maximum image transfer time in [ms].

  2. Packet Size: Packet size in [byte] for the transmission of the UDP packets of the image data.

  3. Latency Level: Latency level for the ‘GigE Vision performance driver’ in the range [0..3], where 0 means the lowest latency and 3 means the lowest CPU utilization. The default value is 3. Lower values can stabilize image acquisition at the expense of higher CPU utilization.

Custom Image Capture Parameters

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Camera-specific parameters (’GigE Vision XML Feature’) can be added here. The parameter list is written to the camera before image acquisition. The Cognex VisionPro image source remembers the last sent parameters and writes the parameter list into the camera only when changed !