Camera & vision techniques

This article explains how to export your cameras parameter settings into a text file. The exported data can be used as backup, record of different settings during testing or to program multiple cameras with the same parameters. Why importing or exporting camera settings? The GalaxyViewer has the option to save the cameras current settings into a text file. This function comes handy in some situations, for example when you test different camera setups and want to document it or if you need technical support. The text file can be imported into Excel for further analysis.   Another usage of the text file is as a backup, in case the camera needs to be replaced. Or if you want to configure multiple cameras with the same settings. E.g., slave cameras. How to export the industrial camera settings The export of the industrial...

Gamma is a machine vision technique used to correct the difference between the digital image readout and the perception of the human eye. It can also be used to correct over illuminated spots. This is a detailed article about Gamma correction. What is Gamma Correction? A camera sensor converts light intensity of a pixel into equivalent digital value. The digital value is directly proportional to the light intensity of a pixel and hence has a linear relationship. However, a human eye perceives the images as a logarithmic function of intensity instead of a linear function. If the images from a camera sensor are directly displayed on a display device, then the scene will appear unnatural because of the differences between the camera sensor and human eye perception. To compensate this, the image from the camera sensor goes through the...

Depth of field is important for acquiring a sharp image of an object you are inspecting. With the right use of depth of field, you can ensure that the object you inspect is in focus, while the background and foreground are not in focus. That way it is easier for your vision software to recognize your object. Depth of field is an important factor that you can use to your advantage. This article will explain what depth of field is, and how to use it. What is depth of field? Technically, the depth of field is the distance between the nearest and furthest object of the image that is in focus during acquisition. In the image below, the working distance is 250mm. The closest object to the lens is 190 mm away. The furthest object is 250mm away and in between is an object 210mm away from the lens.  If your camera set up has a...

Applications with fast moving objects, often need a high framerate and short exposure time. Short exposure time comes with less light, meaning a light sensitive lens and image sensor are required. Here is an overview of settings that will help you find the optimal settings in your high-speed application. You can use this as a guideline. Set the correct Exposure Time The first setting to optimize is the exposure time. The maximum exposure time is 1/framerate. If you want to achieve 200fps, the maximum exposure time is 1/200= 5ms. The lower the exposure time, the darker the image, therefore you want your exposure time to be as long as possible to increase the brightness. However, it is limited by the calculated maximum exposure as shown above. Another important limitation you need to be aware of is the maximum exposure time to...

Welcome to the step-by-step instruction for installing an industrial camera to the MVec167 industrial camera enclosure. If at any moment during the instruction, you have questions, make sure to give us a call or email us at cs@get-cameras.com and our team will help you out. We wish you good luck with the installation Step 1: Preparations Unpack the MVEC167 in a secure location as it contains screws and loose parts. Get a Torx T10 screwdriver, your industrial camera, the lens and cables. Step 2: Remove the lens tube To remove the lens tube, lift the blue pin on the top of the enclosure. You can use a pen to easily unlock the pin. Once the pin is up, simply twist the lens cap to the right. Store the lens cap in a secure location.   Step 3: Open the top side Use the Torx T10 screwdriver to release the three screws...

Within our free Galaxy SDK for our industrial cameras, we offer a basic plugin to save captured images to the hard drive or to save the captured images as a video.In this article we explain the different settings and the settings we advise for capturing and saving images and videos using our industrial camera. Videos and Images Save Plugin Install our GalaxySDK ( Download drivers and manuals ) Run the program Daheng Galaxy Viewer(x64) Go to Plugin->Videos and Images Save Plugin as shown in the screenshot below.  With this plugin captured images can be saved as images in different formats or even as a video file.   Base parameter for videos and Images Save Plugin The following parameters can be set: -    Number of memory, the amount of images that are buffered into the...

Pixel binning and Decimation are advanced camera features that are available on a selected cameras. To check if this feature is available for your camera, open the framerate calculator as explained in this article https://www.get-cameras.com/How-to-use-the-frame-calculator-for-industrial-cameras and check if you have the BinningHorizontal, BinningVertical, DecimationHorizontal and DecimationVertical field visible in the framerate calculator for your camera model. Pixel binning is used to increase light sensitivity and reduce image resolution. Decimation, also known as pixel skipping is used to reduce the image resolution while not changing the size of the field of view. PIXEL BINNING  Pixel binning is used to increase light sensitivity and reduce the image resolution. When setting the camera in pixel binning mode,...

Industrial machine vision cameras are reliable and robust, so must be the external triggering system. When fast operation is needed, the trigger sensor needs to react very quickly. The trigger sensor will change the voltage (electricity) on the specified pins of the camera’s I/O connector. This system works with the so-called rising edge or falling edge, voltage going from a low value to high (rising edge), or from high to low (falling edge). By doing so the camera will respond very fast on the trigger sensor triggers.   Programming the camera to accept triggers from trigger sensor You can program a machine vision camera to accept triggers from the trigger sensor. Using our cameras, you will need to use our Galaxy SDK software. When you are connected to the camera you can program your trigger source: Step...

To calculate the framerate of an industrial camera, a framerate calculator is available. This doc used to be available after installing the SDK . The frame rate calculator (an excel file) was located in the folder C:\Program Files\Daheng Imaging\GalaxySDK\Doc. Currently you can download the frame rate calculator from our download area . For this example, we are using the frame rate calculator for the USB3 camera MARS-1230-23U3X explaining the different options available. Afterwards we will highlight the few differences between a USB3 camera and Gigabit Ethernet framerate calculator. For the Gigabit Ethernet camera we will use the MER-131-75Gx camera as example. Step 1: Open the frame rate calculator USB3 camera Open the correct frame rate calculator. Each camera series has it own calculator. The screenshots...

Bandwidth is the amount of data which can be transmitted over a certain interface (USB3 / GigE / 5GigE) during a certain period. The higher the bandwidth of the interface, the more and faster data can be received or sent. This article will explain multiple options for bandwidth control and how to calculate the required framerate for your industrial USB3 camera. To control the bandwidth of industrial USB3 cameras, we need to understand how the USB3 connection works and how to determine which framerate values we need. USB3 INDUSTRIAL VISION CAMERA ADVANTAGES USB3 is a suitable interface for high resolution and high-speed cameras. The USB3 connection has a maximum bandwidth of 480 megabytes per second. This is 10 times faster than USB2 and 4 times faster than GigE. Every computer and almost all developer boards come with USB3...

This guide will explain how to set and use the Region of interest function of the industrial camera, how to resize an image and how to capture only a defined area. This is commonly used to: -    reduce the amount of collected data -    reduce the required bandwidth -    increase the framerate of an industrial camera -    isolate the view on a certain area In this article we will set a Region of Interest and offset it from the top left corner to the centre of our image. Using these 3 steps you can define the size and position of the industrial cameras Region of Interest. STEP 1: CHECK THE IMAGE SIZE AND DEFINE REGION OF INTEREST Check the maximum image size (resolution) of your industrial camera and define your desired Region of Interest. For this example, we...

This article will explain 4 different ways to power a GigE camera. We talk about powering the industrial camera via a PoE Switch, PoE Injector, GigE Power adapter and via an external power source. The MER2 series power specifications are: PoE (Power over Ethernet, IEEE802.3af compliant) or 12VDC-10% ~ 24VDC+10% supplied via the camera's 8-pin Hirose connector. The MER series power specifications are: PoE (Power over Ethernet, IEEE802.3af compliant) or 12VDC-10%  supplied via the camera's 8-pin Hirose connector. How to use Power over Ethernet with a PoE switch and a GigE PoE industrial Camera? A Power over Ethernet switch transmits power and data via a CAT6 network cable. This means that if your machine vision application has a GigE industrial camera with PoE, you do not need an extra external power...

When you have set the parameters of your camera according to your application requirements, you can store these settings into the camera. When you reboot the camera, or reapply power to the camera, the camera will now start with your saved settings. STEP 1: CAMERA “UserSetControl” SETTINGS Open the GalaxyView software and connect to the camera. Go to the menu UserSetControl. When the camera is connected for the first time, the “Default” usersetting is already selected. You can change the following parameters: UserSetSelector -> choose which usersettings you want to select UserSetLoad -> load the selected usersettings UserSetSave -> Save the current camera settings into the selected usersetting UserSetDefault -> select which usersetting starts at camera boot STEP 2: SAVE YOUR...

The use of (color) C-mount lens filters is to be able to create contrast between colored parts of an object with a monochrome camera to easily detect and measure the specific part of the object. Additionally (color)C-mount lens filters are used to block external-environmental lighting. Why monochrome camera and not color? Because monochrome cameras  are up to 3 times more light sensitive and produce sharper images. (Color)C-mount lens filters can be applied to camera lenses without significant loss of light or image quality. Color lens filter principle Using a Color lens filter to add contrast works on subtraction idea. For this example we take a red bottle cap with red lens filter. The red Lens filters does not brighten up the cap. Instead, the complementary colors and the colors close to the complementary colors are filtered...

How to synchronize industrial machine vision cameras? To synchronize industrial machine vision cameras the I/O port of the industrial camera is required. A master camera will hardware trigger it’s slave cameras to assure perfect synchronization between all cameras. In this example we explain how to connect 1 master camera to 3 slave cameras. As a result the setup will have 4 industrial cameras perfect synchronized. Technical schematic of a synchronized camera setup: The schematic below shows how to trigger 3 slave cameras from 1 master camera. An external power supply is always required. The external power supply voltage range should be between 5 and 24V. In our example we will use a 12V external power supply for the synchronized camera setup. The power Line 1 output can withstand 25 mA max. A Line 0 input(s) needs 7mA...

How do I connect multiple GigE industrial cameras to a single network port? We will explain how to connect 4 industrial GigE cameras. Therefore we have used the following material: 4x MER-630-16GC-P, 6.3MP industrial GigE camera 5 Port PoE switch 1000mbit / 1Gbit PC with windows 10 and a 1000mbit / 1Gbit networkcard Please double check that your connection is 1000mbit / 1Gbit and not 100mbit. Some PoE switches are only 100mbit and we see more often that customer think they have 1Gbit connection but in reality they have a 100mbit connection. This article explains how you can check if you have a 1 Gbit connection. You can only check this when the industrial GigE camera is connected. Step 1,  connect all GigE cameras to the PoE switch Connect the GigE cameras to the PoE switch and check if the LED on the back of...

How to connect and trigger a LED light source with a machine vision camera from Daheng Imaging using an industrial strobe controller . This is applicable to both USB3 and GigE machine vision cameras that have a trigger output. As additional hardware we have used a 12V powersupply, a Power LED and a triggerable industrial strobe controller, the ACC-MV-LED-STROBECONTROLLER-V1 . We have recently renewed this article on the product page of the industrial strobe controler .   Step 1: Program the triggerable industrial strobe controller We are using in our example an ACC-MV-LED-STROBECONTROLLER-V1 industrial strobe controller that can be triggered. A nice feature of this strobe controller is that you can program it, using the dipswitches, without the need of connecting the strobe controller to a pc. Most...