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PixeLINK™ PL-A780 6.6 Megapixel Camera System Guide

1. 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 45 advanced feature registers space is defined at offset 0480h Note that this offset is relative to the base address FFFF F000 0000h not the IIDC base address To be useful the definition of the advanced features has to be supplied by the camera vendor in a form similar to this document 6 6 Video Transmission Details This section will give details on different ways to tell an IIDC camera to send video data the way the data is transmitted and the format of the data 6 6 1 Video Transmission Control The IIDC Specification defines the general Status and Control Registers for the camera Some of these registers are used to control the isochronous transmission of video data The camera can either be setup to continuously output video frames output a single frame or output several frames 6 6 2 Isochronous Packet Size The camera controller must know the size of the isochronous packets that will be transmitted so that 1394 isochronous bandwidth can be allocated before instructing the camera to output data In formats 0 1 and 2 the packet size can be determined based on the mode and frame rate by consulting the appropriate table in the IIDC specification The packet size for format 7 can be determined from the format 7 control registers These registers will also provide the number of bytes per frame and the number of packets per frame
2. P i e LINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 Revision Date June 2004 FireWire 6 6 Megapixel Camera SYSTEM GUIDE Phone Fax MAKING DIGITAL IMAGING SIMPLE Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved e mail PixeLINK PL A780 6 6 Megapixel Camera System Guide Copyright Notice Document Number 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All rights reserved This document contains proprietary and confidential information of PixeLINK The contents of this document may not be copied nor duplicated in any form in whole or in part without prior written consent from PixeLINK By purchasing this product the Purchaser s and or any subsequent legitimate owner s of the product henceforth referred to as the Purchaser agree s to abide by the terms of this Agreement and read and recognize the following set of definitions appertaining to the intellectual property items and trademark references as can be found throughout this System Guide PixeLINK provides the information and data included in this document for the Purchaser s benefit but it is not possible for PixeLINK to entirely verify and test all of this information in all circumstances particularly information relating to non PixeLINK manufactured products PixeLINK makes no warranties or representations relating to the quality content or adequacy of this information Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this Guide however PixeLINK assumes no responsibilit
3. 5 1 3 2 Color Coding The Color Coding feature selects the output type of the camera The PL A782 supports the following types 4 2 2 YUV 2 Raw8 9 Auto The PL A781 monochrome supports Mono8 0 and Mono16 5 Color coding None Absolute N A N A N A N A format 5 1 3 3 Gain Gain or contrast controls the sensitivity of the camera Increasing gain will increase the sensitivity but will also increase the noise in The Gain control can be set to one of seventeen values 0 0 1 6 Auto 3 1 4 8 6 3 7 8 9 2 10 6 12 0 13 4 14 8 16 2 17 6 19 2 20 7 or 22 1 A setting of 0 0 represents the imager unity gain setting PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 32 Camera Operation amp Features 5 1 3 4 Gamma Gamma controls the contrast in the image by translating pixel values according to a logarithmic curve A value of one is a linear translation Higher or lower values of gamma will result in missing Gegen No codes in the image histogram Es EES The Gamma curve is applied internally in the camera in the form of a calculated look up table the same table used by the Look Up Table feature When the Gamma feature is activated the Look Up Table feature is disabled and vice versa 5 1 3 5 Memory Channel The memory channel feature stores all camera parameters into non volatile memory Valid value
4. 54 8 1 1 Trigger Mode 0 54 8 2 GPO Modes 55 8 2 1 GPO MODE 0 STROBE 55 8 2 2 GPO Mode 1 Normal 55 8 2 3 GPO Mode 3 Busy 55 8 2 4 GPO Mode 4 Flash Window 55 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE vii 9 Frame Format and Descriptor Structures 56 9 1 Frame Format 56 9 1 1 Byte Order 56 9 2 Descriptor Structure Format 57 9 2 1 Descriptor Version 0x0003 57 10 Technical Notes amp Support 59 Table of Figures Figure 1 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 1 No Decimation 8 Figure 2 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 2 Decimation 2X 8 Figure 3 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 3 Decimation 3x 9 Figure 4 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 4 Decimation 4X 9 Figure 5 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 6 Decimation 6X 10 Figure 6 Examples of the effects of Decimation Resampling and Averaging on Image ROS Neta estes tens teens te ot taeda eebe Seege 11 Figure 7 Rolling Shutter Integration and Read Out 13 Figure 8 PL A780 GpechalResponse eene neen eener nere nn ennn nenne ennnen anneanne nenen nennen 15 Figure 9 PL A780 Standard Configuration ceceeceeeseceeeeeeeeeeeenaaeeeeeeeeeeeeenseneeeeeeeees 17 Figure 10 PL A780 Rear VIe ceciemnonentsa tmsemmeannmssntantmms
5. GPOs can output a Flash Window that indicates the period of time following the completion of the array reset and the start of readout The duration of this signal is equivalent to the integration time This signal can be used to fire a flash and control the duration of the flash to match the exposure time Hence regardless of the number of rows in the ROI the illumination will be correctly applied See Section 8 2 4 on page 55 for more information If using an external system of the GPOs in Strobe mode the delay from the start of integration the trigger event with zero delay and the start of the flash should be set to 3 5 us x N 10 where N is the number of rows in the image The flash duration should not exceed the exposure time This will ensure the flash fires after the reset sequence is complete and completes firing before readout commences For example assume the PL A780 is being used to capture full resolution images of a moving object The object creates a trigger as it passes a detector and the detector is placed such that the object will be in front of the camera 20 milliseconds after passing the detector To freeze the action a strobe light is set to fire with a 20 microsecond pulse when commanded by the camera The camera is configured for a 4 millisecond exposure time and a hardware trigger with a trigger delay see Section 5 1 3 11 on page 34 of 8 milliseconds The GPO 1 control is set to strobe mode with a delay of 20 millisecond
6. P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 20 Camera Operation amp Features 4 5 Mounting Bottom Mount As shown in Figure 12 on page 18 there are four M3 threaded holes on the bottom of the PL A780 Camera These holes can be used to attach the camera to an optional 4 20 thread mounting plate available from your PixeLINK vendor or to mount the camera to a custom fixture Sensor Face Mount As shown in Figure 11 on page 18 there are four M3 threaded holes surrounding the C mount These holes can be used to mount the Camera to a custom fixture Thermal Considerations The camera dissipates 5 W Heat affects image quality and results in visible pixel noise For optimal image quality and performance consider heat dissipation when mounting the camera The camera should be mounted on a metal plate or fixture using the mounting holes on the front or bottom surface The plate should provide a conduction path to remove the heat from the camera body The tripod mount accessory is not an adequate mounting plate for this purpose Clearances for airflow will also help dissipate heat The PL A780 has an internal temperature sensor that can be used to determine if the heat dissipation is adequate With good heat sinking the sensor should be around 5 above the ambient temperature 4 6 Electrical Connections The PL A782 Camera has the following connectors on the back as shown in Figure 10 on page 18 e 2 Six pin FireWire Connectors Combined power dat
7. Presence of GPO Mode 12 Mode13 Ing Presence of GPO Mode 13 Mode14 Ing Presence of GPO Mode 14 Mode15 Ing Offset 24 31 0 31 Presence of GPO Mode 15 Reserved Quadlet offset of the absolute value CSR for GPO 0 Parameter 1 See NOTE 3 130h GPO Parameter 2 Offset 0 31 Quadlet offset of the absolute value CSR for GPO 0 Parameter 2 See NOTE 3 134h GPO Parameter 3 Offset 0 31 Quadlet offset of the absolute value CSR for GPO 0 Parameter 3 See NOTE 3 138h Extended Shutter Inquiry Presence Inq 0 Presence of this feature In Desc Ing 1 Can this feature have different values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No Ga Reserved Number Rnees 4 7 Maximum Number of Knee Points 1 4 8 31 Reserved Extended Shutter Knee SO Point 0 Offset 0 31 Quadlet offset of the absolute value CSR for Extended Shutter Knee Point 0 See NOTE 4 Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved PiXe LINK PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE PixeLINR Advanced CSRs Lookup Tables Inquiry Look Up Table Presence_Inq 49 Description Presence of this feature In_Desc_Inq Can this feature have different values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No Reserved Bit_Depth Number Bit depth of an entry in the lookup table Numb
8. access read and or control these features see Section 7 1 Extensions to the IIDC Version 1 31 Specification on page 52 The advanced features include the following PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE E Copyright 2004 PixeLINK Pixe LINK All Rights Reserved 36 Camera Operation amp Features Camera Information Camera Name Descriptors General Purpose Outputs Look Up Table Pixel Addressing 5 1 4 1 Camera Information A block of CSRs provides read only access to basic camera information including e Camera Serial Number e FPGA Version e Firmware Version e Camera Description The camera serial number is a factory set string of numbers that uniquely identifies the camera The FPGA Version and Firmware Version identify the hardware and firmware versions currently loaded in the camera The FPGA and Firmware can be updated in the field and these entries will reflect the versions currently loaded The FPGA and Firmware version numbers are stored as a 32 bit word and can be decoded in the form Byte0 Byte1 Byte2 Byte3 The camera description is a text string up to 256 characters long that provides a short description of the camera type 5 1 4 2 Camera Name The name of the camera can be read and set from this feature It is a text string of up to 256 characters in length 5 1 4 3 Descriptors A descriptor is a list of all the camera parameters The Descriptor feature is a way to contr
9. and 5000 K daylight Minor variations in coloring aD We can be adjusted vvith the VVhite Shading feature described in the next section When the White Balance control is set in Auto Mode it will control the White Shading feature This allows for consistent use of Auto White Balance terminology Applies to color cameras only Parameter Unt Type Default Step Size Commens J White Deg Absolute EH EZE 3200 1800 Balance Kelvin 5 1 3 13 White Shading The White Shading feature provides control over the individual red green and blue channel gains so that non standard color balance Manual Yes can be achieved One push Auto will attempt to white balance the Stee Ves gains match the histogram peaks of each color channel based on Kr the image data in the current ROI The vvhite shading control as described in the IIDC 1 31 specification only provides for 8 bits of shading data per channel Additional CSRs are provided to allow 32 bit resolution in color channels See Section 7 1 1 1 on page 52 The White Shading can also be set by the Auto mode of the White Balance control mentioned above Setting a gain parameter to zero will effectively turn off that color channel it will output a zero value Applies to color cameras only 5 1 4 Advanced Features The following features are not defined by the IIDC specification but are specific to PixeLINK cameras and to the PL A780 camera series To
10. as a Bayer pattern At the host the Bayer pattern is converted back to RGB for display The Bayer to RGB conversion uses algorithms that have an effect similar to smoothing filters and image detail is slightly blurred each time the conversion is performed When outputting in YUV422 no Bayer to RGB conversions are performed at the host All the intensity information is transmitted along with half the color information of the RGB image The resulting transmission uses more bandwidth and the frame rate will be reduced but the image will have more detail By combining blocks of pixels to one RGB triplet resampling does not use data from neighboring pixels so no smoothing occurs Resampling effectively reduces the image resolution and increases the pixel size Resampling also results in sharper image quality compared to decimation or averaging which are affected by the Bayer to RGB conversions discussed above For the best results the output type or Color Coding should be set to YUV422 when using resampling Figure 6 below shows the effects of the various modes of Pixel Addressing on image quality The images are of a Nyquist chart Figure 6 a shows the full resolution image with no decimation averaging or resampling The colors that appear in the chart are a result of the Bayer pattern They occur when the fine lines in the chart cover certain colors in the Bayer mosaic on the sensor The regular patterns in the Nyquist chart exaggerate the effect
11. descriptors and all other features in the second The first section of the structure is attached to the end of each frame sent to the driver This part of the structure is required to be as small as possible so only features that could change from frame to frame and be unknown by the Host are included i e features that could be in Auto mode The whole structure first and second section is used when accessing the Descriptor structure located at the Descriptor Offset See Table 11 on page 46 The PL_A780 uses Descriptor Version 3 Versions 0 through 2 are subsets of this structure and are used by other PixeLINK cameras Refer to the PixeLINK API Reference Manual for more information 9 2 1 Descriptor Version 0x0003 typedef struct _DESCRIPTOR const U16 wSize Size of this structure in bytes const U16 wVersion 0x0003 Version of this structure float fWhiteBalance White Balance float fSaturation Saturation float fBrightness Brightness float fShutter Shutter float fGain Gain float fRedGain Red Gain float fGreenGain Green Gain float fBlueGain Blue Gain if FRAME STRUCTURE DESCRIPTOR PDESCRIPTOR else FRAME STRUCTURE This section contains all settings that don t change without PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 58 the host
12. on page 34 the Shutter control determines the number of lines in the ROI that are active at any time In Fast Reset Shutter mode the Shutter control determines the length of time from the completion of frame reset to the start of readout When the Frame Rate control is active ON the Shutter control is limited by the Frame Rate control setting For example if the Frame Rate control is set to 50 fps the maximum value of the Shutter control will be limited to 20 ms For unlimited control of the Shutter feature the Frame Rate control must be turned off One time Yes Auto ff 2 0 Integration Seconds Absolute 63 us 0 1 Varies Time The integration time step size is the time required to read out one row See Section 3 2 3 on page 12 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE P i el INK Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved 34 Camera Operation amp Features 5 1 3 9 Temperature The Temperature control is a read only control that provides an indication of the temperature of the sensor chip Auto 5 1 3 10 Trigger Trigger controls the response of the camera to an external trigger input It also controls the rolling shutter or Fast Reset Shutter Manual behavior of the camera Trigger modes and parameters are GREC ME MEC TE described in detail in Section 8 1 on page 54 Turning the trigger fe B off enables the rolling shutter Turning the trigger on enabl
13. video data A separate set of control registers exists for each format 7 mode To determine the location of these control registers for a given mode the offset can be read from registers starting at offset O2EOh For example to determine the control register offset for format 7 mode 0 read the register at offset 01E0h or address FFFF FODO 01E0h if this value was 0034 0280h then the offset for the control registers would be 00D0 OA00h or address FFFF FODO 0A00h Note that this offset is relative to the base address FFFF F000 0000h not the IIDC base address The format 7 control registers as defined in the IIDC specification are mostly self explanatory They provide information on the sizes and positions of video data supported the PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved A4 Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 different types of pixel format supported and provide controls to set all of these options The also provide information and control of isochronous streaming parameters discussed later in Section 6 6 2 on page 45 For example to determine the current image width and height of the video data read the register at offset 000Ch or address FFFF FODO OAOCh using the example format 7 mode 0 control register offset If this value is 0500 0400h then the current width and height would be 1280 x 1024 6 5 2 Camera Features The camera f
14. with analog signals use the Debounce Delay Adjustment Tool included with the PixeLINK software A copy of the application is also available from the PixeLINK Web Site at http Awww pixelink com Look for the tool on the PL A780 product page The tool adjusts the clock frequency used to determine a valid trigger signal The trigger detection circuit tests the value of the trigger at each clock tick and will only declare a trigger event when the trigger signal changes and remains constant for 5 clock cycles By varying the clock frequency the PL A780 can use either analog trigger generators or digital TTL type signals The clock frequency can be set at values ranging from 156 Hz to 10 MHz For analog trigger sources such as the Trigger Accessory included with the Developer s and Camera Kits a clock setting of 100kHz or slower is required For very clean digital triggers the clock can be increased to the maximum 10 MHz The camera is shipped with the clock set to 5 MHz Table 8 Pinout of the 6 Pin Hirose Connector 611 1 Pin Pin Name Function Comments O CO Mis FireWire cable power 8 30 o Maximum current available from 50O O 2 V DC typically 12 V this pin is 250 mA O O We Positive terminal oflo Toinitiate a trigger apply a voltage 4 3 optically isolated trigger of between 5 V and 12 V 4 11 mA Pinout as viewed input to the trigger terminals TRIGGER Negative terminal of The optically isolated trigger input optically iso
15. 14db Gain Green 1 0db Gain Red 1 09db Gamma Off GPO Mode Mode 0 Strobe GPO On False Off GPO Parameter 1 Min GPO Parameter 2 Min GPO Polarity Positive Programmable LUT Linear ROI Height 3000 ROI Left 0 ROI Top 0 ROI Width 2208 Saturation 100 Shutter 100ms Trigger Delay 0 0 Trigger Mode 0 Trigger Polarity Positive Trigger Source Internal Trigger Type Fast Reset Shutter Video Format 7 Video Frame Rate Max Iso Video Mode 0 White Balance 3200 0 5 1 2 Video Format Mode Frame rate The PL A780 supports the following video formats modes and frame rates e Format 0 VGA non compressed 640 x 480 e Mode 1 320 x 240 YUV 4 2 2 Frame rate 2 to 4 7 5 to 240 fps e Mode 3 640 x 480 YUV 4 2 2 Frame rate 2 to 7 7 5 to 60 fps e Mode 5 640 x 480 Y Mono 8 bits pixel Frame rate 2 to 4 7 5 to 60 fps e Mode 6 640 x 480 Y Mono 16 bits pixel Frame rate 2 to 4 7 5 to 30 fps e Format 7 partial image size variable ROI PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved Camera Operation amp Features 29 Note that for Format 0 operation the sensor ROI is set to 1920 x 1440 with the Pixel Addressing set to 3 or 6 for Modes 3 and 1 respectively While in Format 0 the features that would affect the ROI size position Pixel Addressing and pixel format color
16. A f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i el IN K All Rights Reserved 40 Camera Operation amp Features 5 2 Non IIDC Features Accessible with the PixeLINK API The following features are specific to the PL A780 camera series To access them you will need the PixeLINK Software Development Kit PL SDK VERSION 4 1 The PixeLINK API defines two functions that allow access to camera specific features These are PxLCameraRead and PxLCameraWrite They can be used with the PL A78X to turn on or off flat field correction and determine what gain the camera was calibrated at 5 2 1 Flat Field Correction Flat Field Correction FFC applies a gain and offset correction per pixel to correct for illumination and sensor irregularities A factory calibration is performed and stored in the camera memory It is possible to perform FFC calibration in the field using a software tool available with the CD that ships with RIT and DEV product bundles or from the PixeLINK web site Look for downloads associated with the PL A781 or PL A782 products See Section 10n page 1 for more information The data to transmit for flat field correction has in the following format StETUCE ULONG CommandCode a LONG Ff cOn 1 On 0 OFF FLOAT FfcCalibrationGain Gain at which FFC was calibrated in dB he To turn flat field correction off or on set FfcOn to O or 1 and CommandCode to 0x00008002 To read the flat field correction se
17. E This sample DC Base Address will be used in all further examples in this document 6 4 2 IIDC Command Registers In Section 1 of the IIDC specification all Command registers or CSRs are defined The offsets for all of these registers unless otherwise specified are relative to the IDC Base Address The IIDC CSRs consist of Inquiry Registers and Control Registers The IIDC specification is designed to support many different types of cameras with many different features the Inquiry registers are used by controlling software to determine which of these Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 43 features a specific camera supports and the Control registers are used to modify settings of the supported features The next section will go into more detail about some of these registers 6 5 Command Register Details This section will give details on some of the different IIDC command registers what they mean and how to use them 6 5 1 Video Formats IIDC video formats are used to define what type of video data will be output from the camera Several different formats are defined based on image size Format 0 VGA 640x480 and smaller resolutions Format 1 SVGA format 1 from 800x600 to 1024x768 Format 2 SVGA format 2 from 1280x960 to 1600x1200 Format 6 Still Images not described in t
18. Firewire Cable Power 250 mA max gt 1 POWER 1 K ohm 5V to 12V Input OPTO isolator 4mA to 11mA m A oGRounD lt 15 mA max 5 6GP1 Output OPTO isolator Current Sink Outputs lt 15mAmax 6 GP2 Output OPTO isolator GROUND Logic and Chassis Machine Vision Connector Figure 13 Machine Vision Connector Interface Schematic 4 6 3 1 Trigger and GPO Timing The default trigger latency on the PL A780 cameras is 8 microseconds from the change in the trigger signal until the start of the image reset assuming the Trigger Delay feature is set to zero The start of integration will be delayed by the reset delay This latency is due to Optical isolation delay on the trigger input assume 5 V turn on 6 us typical Debounce delay 5 MHz default 1 0 1 2 us Synchronization delay to start of reset 0 5 us and Reset delay 3 55 us row x N rows where N is the number of rows after decimation The trigger input can be either positive or negative pulse The minimum pulse width depends on the debounce delay set in the camera typically at least 50 microseconds for analog signals and at least 1 microsecond for TTL signals Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 23 The debounce delay can be adjusted to allow for non TTL signals to be used To adjust the debounce delay for use
19. I Position Auto ROI Size On_Off 0 224h Rotate 1 On 0 Off 1 31 Reserved Frame Buffer On Off 228h Frame Buffer On_Off 0 4 On 0 Off Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved Pi Se LINK SYSTEM GUIDE PixeLINR Advanced CSRs 51 Description Clear buffer automatically reset 1 Clear buffer Clear Buffer Setting this bit will empty the buffer so 8 that it can be filled vvith another frame This bit vvill be cleared once the buffer is reset Reserved mode Value of the 1394 cycle time that when reached will cause the camera to capture a frame This is only used in Sync Cycle Time trigger mode 15 A value of OxFFFFFFFF in this register means the camera will not begin output of a frame until a valid value is programmed Reserved for future Feature Control registers GPO CONTROL REGISTERS GPO 0 On Off 1 On 0 Off GPO 0 Polarity 1 Active High 0 Active Low 2 23 Reserved 24 31 GPO 0 Mode On_Off GPO 0 Config Polarity GPO X On Off 1 On 0 Off GPO X Polarity 1 Active High 0 Active Low Reserved GPO X Mode On_Off GPO X Config Polarity GPO 14 On Off 1 On 0 Off On_Off GPO 14 Config GPO 14 Polarity 1 Active High 0 Active Low 2 23 Reserved Mode 24 31 GPO 14 Mode Polarity 1 Rese
20. Ket IN K All Rights Reserved vi 5 1 3 4 Gamma 32 5 1 3 5 Memory Channel 32 5 1 3 6 Region of Interest 32 5 1 3 7 Saturation 33 5 1 3 8 Shutter 33 5 1 3 9 Temperature 34 5 1 3 10 Trigger 34 5 1 3 11 Trigger Delay 34 5 1 3 12 White Balance 35 5 1 3 13 White Shading 35 5 1 4 Advanced Features 35 5 1 4 1 Camera Information 36 5 1 4 2 Camera Name 36 5 1 4 3 Descriptors 36 5 1 4 4 General Purpose Outputs 37 5 1 4 5 Look Up Table 37 5 1 4 6 Pixel Addressing 39 5 2 Non IIDC Features Accessible with the PixeLINK API 40 5 2 1 Flat Field Correction 40 6 Developing Software for the PL A780 41 6 1 Introduction 41 6 2 Useful Definitions 41 6 3 How Do 1394 Devices Communicate 42 6 4 Communication With a IIDC Camera 42 6 4 1 Navigating the Configuration ROM 42 6 4 2 IIDC Command Registers 42 6 5 Command Register Details 43 6 5 1 Video Formats 43 6 5 1 1 Formats 0 1 8 2 43 6 5 1 2 Format 7 43 6 5 2 Camera Features 44 6 5 3 Absolute Value CSRs 44 6 5 4 Advanced Feature CSRs 44 6 6 Video Transmission Details 45 6 6 1 Video Transmission Control 45 6 6 2 Isochronous Packet Size 45 6 6 3 Features That Affect Isochronous Packet Size or Format 45 7 PixeLINK Advanced CSRs 46 7 1 Extensions to the IIDC Version 1 31 Specification 52 7 1 1 Determining which Features can change in a Descriptor 52 7 1 1 1 Color Coding 52 7 1 2 White Shading Absolute Value Registers 53 8 Feature Modes and Values 54 8 1 Trigger Modes
21. N All Rights Reserved 50 PixeLINK Advanced CSRs Reserved for future Feature Inquiry registers ADVANCED FEATURE CONTROL REGISTERS Zero based index of the descriptor Current 0 7 currently in focus Format 7 only Mumber 8 15 Number of descriptors currentiy in use Descriptor Configuration Format 7 only See NOTE 6 Append Descriptors to each frame 1 Append 0 Don t Append 17 31 Reserved Value for Pixel Addressing Actual reduction is Base Value except when Base 1 then it is Value Format 7 Append_Desc 16 0 15 Pixel Addressing only 16 23 Reserved 24 31 Pixel Addressing mode mm Horizontal Flip On Off See NOTE 7 1 On 0 Off 1 15 Reserved Vertical Flip On Off See NOTE 7 1 On 0 Off 17 31 Reserved Source 0 V On Off 16 po me Cd 1 OBSOLETE This has been replaced Advanced Trigger Type 1 with the trigger_source parameter of the trigger_mode feature in IIDC v1 31 2 31 Number IO d Number of Knee Points 8 31 Reserved Lookup Table On Off On_Off 0 Look Up Table 0 1 On 0 Off 1 31 Reserved 0 Auto ROI On Off Auto ROI 1 On 0 Off 1 31 Reserved 0 15 Left Position of the Auto ROI Pixels 16 31 Top Position of the Auto ROI Pixels 0 15 Width of the Auto ROI Pixels 16 31 Height of the Auto ROI Pixels Rotate On Off See NOTE 7 Extended Shutter Auto RO
22. NE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i Ket INK SYSTEM GUIDE PixeLINR Advanced CSRs 47 Description Presence Inq 0 Presence of this feature 10Ch Descriptor Inquiry KEA Reseed Max_Num 8 15 Maximum number of Descriptors Struct_Ver 16 31 Version of the Descriptor Structure Quadlet offset of the Descriptor 110h Descriptor Offset Value 0 31 Structure from the base address of the initial register space See NOTE 2 Presence_Inq 0 Presence of this feature Can this feature have different values In Desc Ing 1 in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No D A Reserved Mode Inq d presence of Eixa Addressing Mode 0 e g decimation Modet Inq 5 Presence Giri Addressing Mode 1 I I I e g averaging We GE Presence of Pixel Addressing Mode 2 Mode2_Inq 6 e e g binning Mode3 Je 7 Presence of Exe Addressing Mode 3 e g resampling Base for Pixel Addressing Maximum Base 8 15 Pixel Addressing is Base Max Value a except when Base 1 then it is Max_Value The maximum value for the Pixel ve Vele Mes Addressing variable OBSOLETE This has been replaced 118h Absolute Frame Rate Offset 0 31 with the frame_rate feature in IIDC v1 31 H Pres Inq 0 Presence of Horizontal Flip Can Horizontal Flip have different In_Desc_Ing 1 values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No I A 2 15 Reserved 11Ch Flip I
23. Note that the packet size times the number of packets per frame may be greater than the number of bytes per frame the extra bytes may be used for padding in the last packet of a frame and should be ignored 6 6 3 Features That Affect Isochronous Packet Size or Format The following list includes standard IIDC registers as well as PixeLINK extended registers Status and Control Registers CUR_V_FRM_RATE CUR_V_MODE CUR_V_FORMAT ISO_SPEED Feature Status and Control Registers FRAME_RATE Format 7 Registers IMAGE_ SIZE COLOR CODING ID BYTE PER PACRET Extended Registers PIXEL ADDRESSING DESCRIPTOR When any of these registers are written to ISO EN ONE SHOT and MULTI SHOT should all be set to 0 Otherwise the written values will be ignored and an error will be returned PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 46 PixeLINR Advanced CSRs 7 PixeLINK Advanced CSRs Information in this section is based on the IIDC 1 31 specification Please refer to the IIDC 1 31 specification for details on the meanings and use of CSRs The following table describes the Advanced Feature CSRs that are allowed under the IIDC V1 31 specification as vendor specific These CSRs are based at an offset found in the Advanced Feature Offset value register 0x480 This table is common for all IIDC compliant PixeLINK cameras and is included to promote compatibil
24. Parameter 2 PO Parameter 3 PO Polarity rigger Mode Trigger Polarity rigger Type Padding to quadlet align PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE Technical Notes amp Support 59 10 Technical Notes amp Support Tech Notes Tech Notes on a variety of topics are available on our Web site at http www pixelint com Download the Latest Software and Firmware The PL A780 s onboard programming firmware can be upgraded at your computer Whether you have a tech support issue or not we recommend that you check our Web site http www pixelink com regularly for the latest versions of your PixeLINK software and firmware Technical Questions Please follow these steps before contacting our technical support team 1 Review the relevant sections of the documentation 2 Check the PixeLINK Web site for a new software and firmware b applicable Tech Notes 3 Carefully document the problem you are experiencing noting any warning or error messages that may appear during operation 4 Have your Camera s serial number where the camera was purchased and other identifying information at hand The serial number can be found on bottom of the Camera PixeLINK Customer Support Email support pixelink com Web hitp www pixelink com PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved Appendix A Glossary Appendi
25. Reserved piXeLINK accessories 19 API ii iv 5 6 25 26 44 45 63 A 1 Application Programming Interface See API averaging 3 8 11 12 43 52 Bayer pattern 3 8 11 12 43 58 59 A 1 Bayer to RGB conversion 8 11 binning 3 8 13 43 52 bit depth 13 Camera Name 40 51 Color Coding 11 12 31 32 35 58 59 63 color correction 39 compatibility 4 5 6 17 22 45 51 connector pinout 24 connectors 4 22 23 debounce See Trigger debounce delay decimation 3 8 9 11 12 13 15 25 31 43 52 descriptors 30 40 41 52 55 57 58 Determining which features can change in 58 drivers 4 5 6 45 Exposure 14 15 Fast Reset Shutter 13 14 15 31 34 37 38 FFC See Flat Field Correction 46 62 A 1 firmware 4 5 40 65 flash 15 16 Flat Field Correction 3 44 Format 7 7 32 47 49 55 58 63 FPGA 5 40 51 frame format 62 byte order 62 frame interval 13 15 34 frame rate 7 9 12 13 31 32 33 34 37 40 43 49 52 64 A 1 Gain 31 32 33 35 39 63 Gamma 7 31 32 33 35 42 64 General Purpose Outputs See GPO Glass over sensor 21 22 GPO 3 4 16 19 25 26 31 41 53 54 56 57 61 64 A 1 heat sinking 22 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE P ie LI N K Index IIDC iv 7 30 32 39 40 41 45 46 47 48 49 51 52 53 55 58 59 60 62 63 illumination correction See Flat Field Correction initia
26. SION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i Ket INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 19 4 3 PL A780 Handling Instructions Caution Do not open the camera housing ESD Handle the PL A780 using proper ESD procedures Refer to ANSI ESD S20 20 Class Type 3 4000 V Cleaning Housing Clean the housing with a cloth dampened not dripping with reagent grade isopropyl alcohol Glass Clean the protective glass according to the instructions in Section 4 4 2 4 4 Lens and Protective Glass 4 4 1 Lens The Camera s C mount fits a standard C mount lens 1 x 32 tpi A 1 lens is recommended 4 4 2 Protective Glass Each Camera is fitted with an IR cutoff filter to improve the color reproduction of the PL A782 camera and protect the sensor The PL A781 monochrome camera is fitted with clear BK7 glass The glass is not removable in the field Caution A Removing the glass increases the likelihood of contaminating the image sensor If the glass is not place operate the camera under clean room conditions only Cleaning the Glass Minor cleaning 1 Carefully apply puffs of dry compressed air to move particles off the center of the glass 2 Remove oils with a swab moistened with reagent grade isopropyl alcohol The swab should be damp but not dripping A Caution Do not use acetone to clean the glass PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE
27. The appearance of the colors is an indication of good focus in the image but they do detract from Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE PL A780 Camera Specifications 11 image quality Defocusing the lens slightly to blur the lines in the image can eliminate the colors Decimation reduces the image resolution but will introduce more artifacts as seen in Figure 6 b The image has been magnified to allow comparison with Figure 6 a The benefit of using decimation is mainly the increased frame rate possible with the reduced resolution Averaging as shown in Figure 6 c pretty much eliminates the artifacts from the Bayer pattern It has much the same effect as defocusing the lens and the image appears slightly smeared Figure 6 d shows that resampling provides the best overall image quality of the Pixel Addressing modes There are still Bayer artifacts but they are reduced and the sharpness in the image is retained For resampling to work properly the Color Coding needs to be set to YUV422 a 1248 x 288 Full resolution b 1248 x 288 Decimated by 3 Final image size 416 x 96 D N w D on c 1248 x 288 Averaged by 3 Final image size 416 x 96 1 2 8 53 p T Tr 1 9 SiT SoN d 1248 x 288 Resampled by 3 YUV422 Final image size 416 x 96 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Figure 6 Examples of the effects of Decimation Resam
28. a and control signals e A six pin Hirose connector Trigger and strobe 4 6 1 FireWire Power Data amp Control The PL A780 has two six pin FireWire connectors ports allowing several devices to be daisy chained The FireWire cable carries image data power and control signals The connectors are compatible with both regular and harness type latching FireWire plugs You do not need to power down the computer to connect or disconnect a camera nor do you need to reboot after this is done Single camera connection The FireWire connectors are functionally identical Either one of them can be used for a single connection Do not make more than one connection between the camera and the computer the equipment will not be able to communicate properly and the system can crash Multiple camera connections When connecting multiple cameras do not create a functional loop The number of cameras that may be managed simultaneously depends on the total bandwidth and may be limited by power availability and the processing capabilities of the host computer Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 21 Power The host computer can supply power to the camera via the FireWire bus if the computer has a six pin FireWire connector and the total power demand on the bus does not exceed the bus capacity Other system
29. ace to which CSRs in the IIDC specification refer PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 42 Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 6 3 How Do 1394 Devices Communicate Essentially the IEEE 1394 FireWire bus uses a memory mapped communication protocol 1394 transactions can be considered to be a read or write of data to a specified memory address 1394 uses 64bits of addressing 16 bits for bus and node addressing with each node or device on the bus having 48 bits of address space The IIDC specification defines how the address space on an IIDC compliant camera is implemented NOTE 1394 uses big endian notation that means that the most significant byte comes first and the most significant bit is bit The PC uses little endian notation where the least significant byte comes first 6 4 Communication With a IIDC Camera In order to begin communication with an IIDC camera it is first necessary to determine in which portion of the address space the IIDC camera is located To allow flexibility in device implementation the IIDC address space is not the same between devices but can be selected by the camera manufacturer The IIDC specification defines the base address of the IIDC address space as FFFF Fxxx xxxh where the xxx xxxxh is determined from the camera s Configuration ROM 6 4 1 Navigating the Configuration ROM The IIDC specifica
30. ant byte comes first and the most significant bit is bit 0 The PC uses little endian notation where the least significant byte comes first Hence on a PC system when receiving 16 bit data from the camera the bytes will be swapped Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Frame Format and Descriptor Structures 57 The following C code example swaps the bytes and strips the trailing zeros to leave a 10 bit pixel value in the range of 0 to 1023 Swap bytes and shift right to get a value in the range 0 1023 inline U16 SwapAndShiftU16 U16 val return val amp OxFF lt lt 2 val amp OxFFO0O gt gt 14 When interpreting image data from the camera the Video Format Section 5 1 2 or Color Coding Section 5 1 3 2 is used to determine the meaning and order of the data In addition for Raw data formats the Color Filter ID can be used to determine the order of the color channels in the image This is relevant for cameras that can flip or rotate the image data See the IIDC Specification offset 058h from the Video Mode CSR for Format 7 For the PL A780 series cameras which do not support flip or rotate the color data will always be output with Filter ID 2 GR BG format 9 2 Descriptor Structure Format The Descriptor structure has two parts The first part contains a list of all the features that can change between
31. atures or upgrades to the cameras Upgrades to the camera firmware the internal software that controls the camera or the Field Programmable Gate Array FPGA the programmable hardware that determines the camera s features and processing will be made available to all PL A780 customers on the PixeLINK web site These updates can be programmed into older cameras in the field The following tables list the version histories of the PL A780 camera hardware firmware and Field Programmable Gate Array FPGA Table 2 Hardware Version History Hardware Version July 04 Initial release with pre production cameras Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Introduction 5 Hardware Version Table 3 Firmware Version History Firmware Version 00 01 28 00 Po Initial release with the pre production cameras Table 4 FPGA Version History FPGA Version 66 00 23 Po Initial release with the pre production cameras 2 4 Compatibility with PixeLINK Software amp Drivers PL A780 cameras are compatible with the following PixeLINK drivers and API software e PixeLINK Camera Driver Version 4 1 and later e PixeLINK API Version 4 1 and later e PixeLINK Developer s Application Version 1 0 1 20 and later To determine the version of software and drivers installed on your host system select Help About PixeLINK Dev App from the mai
32. ave different limits as outlined in the following sections PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved Camera Operation amp Features Table 10 Feature Control Register Min Max Values Feature Feature Control Register Corresponding Absolute Values Values Min Max Min Max Frame Rate 1 4000 2 0 8000 0 Gain 0 2210 0 0 22 1 Gamma 1 40 0 1 4 0 Saturation 0 250 0 0 250 0 Shutter 1 4095 0 0001 0 4095 Trigger Delay 0 2500 0 0 2 5 White Balance 320 500 3200 5000 White Shading 0 255 0 0 4 0 5 1 3 1 Frame Rate The frame interval and the required bandwidth on the FireWire bus are fixed by the Frame Rate value The available frame rate range depends on the current video format and or video mode Programmers are recommended to check the ON OFF setting and minimum and maximum value after video format ROI and or video mode have been changed Yes One time No Auto When the Frame Rate feature is ON the exposure time Shutter is limited by the frame rate value dynamically When the Frame Rate value is changed the minimum and maximum limits on the Shutter control will change accordingly The Shutter value will be forced to lie within these limits After a change to ROI video format or video mode the Frame Rate control will attempt to maintain the same frame rate If this is not possible the F
33. ble In the PL A780 the Look Up Table LUT has 1024 2 byte entries that range in value from O to 1023 10 bit depth The LUT is used to implement the IIDC Gamma feature but it can also be used to implement any LUT transfer function required The LUT is written to camera memory as a block of 1024 words at the address specified by the Look Up Table Offset register starting with Word 0 Black When the LUT or Gamma function is active ON every pixel is converted according to the transfer function stored in the LUT With both functions off the LUT is bypassed and a linear transfer function is used Since both Gamma and the LUT use the same camera memory whichever function was last turned on will control the memory and the other function will be turned off Turning on the Gamma function will overwrite the LUT with the appropriate gamma values PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i el IN K All Rights Reserved 38 Camera Operation amp Features Turning on the LUT will disable Gamma but will leave the camera memory unchanged If the LUT is turned off the LUT values will be retained in camera memory and will be applied again once the LUT is turned on Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 39 5 1 4 6 Pixel Addressing The Pixel Addres
34. ce for external trigger and GPO strobe e Lens mount for a standard C mount lens 1 x 32 tpi lens not included e Front and bottom mounting holes for a tripod or other mounting fixture M3 screws Accessories Accessories such as trigger kits tripod mounts lenses laptop accessory kits and hands free switches are available from PixeLINK For a current list of accessories visit the PixeLINK Web site at http Awww pixelink com or contact your PixeLINK vendor 4 2 PL A780 Hardware Dimensions Measurements are 0 005 inches 0 15 mm GING sscccscesscssressactssencens 1 65 in 40 6 mm Width EE 1 97 in 50 mm Length scicicscestorieesdenaetandened 4 017 in 102 mm VC E 7 oz 200 g without lens Figure 9 PL A780 Standard Configuration PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 18 Camera Operation amp Features 1 970 50 mm i Status Light i A I CS MV Connector P e2 o 1 650 40 6 mm Figure 10 PL A780 Rear Vievv 4 1 245 Ae X 31 6mm 4 PLACES N a I 0 910 23 1 mm i 1 430 36 3 mm Figure 11 PL A780 Front Vievv 1 792 45 5 mm M3 4 PLACES i H O 1 524 38 7 mm i O O Ke 102 mm Figure 12 PL A780 Bottom View Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VI
35. coding are disabled 5 1 3 IIDC Basic Features The PL A780 camera supports the following basic features e Color Coding color versions only Frame Rate Gain Gamma Memory Channel ROI Saturation color versions only Shutter Temperature Trigger Trigger Delay White Balance color versions only White Shading Compensation color versions only Details about the registers and controls for these features can be found in the IIDC specification The following sections provide a description of how the features apply to the PL A780 camera their parameters and limits Note that the IIDC specification allows two ways to control camera features Feature values can be written into the feature control registers or into absolute value registers The feature control registers are integer based and only allow positive integer values The absolute value registers use floating point numbers and can represent engineering units The PixeLINK PL A780 camera will accept both methods of control However some third party software applications only use the feature control register values As a result the control sliders will have strange limits For more information on the two types of registers see Section 6 5 2 and Section 6 5 3 on page 44 Table 10 below shows the minimum and maximum limits on the IIDC features that use feature control registers and the corresponding absolute value register values Note that the absolute value registers may h
36. countries FireWire is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc registered in the U S and other countries Microsoft DirectShow and Windows are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries TIFF is a trademark or registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and or other countries All other products brand names company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners Definition of Terms This Section is intended to define certain terminology used in this System Guide while ensuring proper attribution and honoring of any and all trademarks and intellectual property items in terms of attribution to their respective owners as mentioned in this System Guide The Purchaser shall hereby recognize the following definitions set herein as can be found throughout this System Guide Camera shall henceforth refer to a PixeLINK Camera API shall henceforth refer to the PixeLINK Camera Application Programming Interface Kit shall henceforth refer to a PixeLINK Camera Kit FireWire shall henceforth refer to the IEEE 1394a interface specification DirectShow shall henceforth refer to the Microsoft DirectShow multimedia software Windows shall henceforth refer to a Microsoft Windows operating system The above Sections set forth Terms and Conditions compliance with which constitutes a mandatory prerequisite for owning and or using the product for whic
37. d as prototypes and will be marked indicating that the CE rating is pending When tested the product will be measured for compliance with the following directives and standards Directives 2001 95 EC General Product Safety Directive Self declared 89 336 EEC EMC Directive Standards to which conformity is declared EN55024 1998 EN55022 1998 For Class B EN61000 3 2 1995 EN61000 3 3 1995 Manufacturer s Name and Address PixeLINK 3030 Conroy Road Ottawa Ontario R1G 6C2 Canada Type of Equipment PixeLINK FireWire Machine Vision Camera Model Number PL A782 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE D iLe INK All Rights Reserved List of Manual Revisions PL A780 6 6 Megapixel Camera System Guide Document Number 04646 16 June 2004 Initial release Related Documentation PixeLINR Application Programming Interface API Reference Part Number 04326 PixeLINK Developers Application Users Manual Part Number 04328 IIDC 1394 based Digital Camera Specification Ver 1 31 dated September 17 2003 IEEE Trade Association Document 2003017 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Table of Contents MACHINE VISION CAMERA 1 Quick Start Instructions 1 2 Introduction 3 2 1 The PL A780 Series 6 6 Megapixel Camera 3 2 2 Topics Covered in this Guide 4 2 3 Firmware a
38. d by FireWire the PL A780 is fully controlled by software on the host computer The PL A780 camera has a full set of controllable features such as exposure time gain gamma saturation and white balance as well as a number of advanced features not found on ordinary machine vision cameras These include e Flexible Region of Interest ROI controls and five levels of Pixel Addressing e On board non volatile memory for storage of camera settings and e Flat Field Correction FFC performed on each pixel on the sensor The high resolution allows the camera to resolve small features while maintaining a large field of view The selectable ROI and multiple Pixel Addressing modes can be used to control the resolution of the camera or to maintain high frame rates with larger fields of view The Pixel Addressing modes allow the resolution to be reduced by factors of 4 9 16 or 36 either by skipping decimation adding binning averaging or resampling the pixel data The on board memory allows the camera to be configured on one computer and used on another without the need for camera configuration files or other configuration data For example the camera could be set up to provide a 648 x 480 field of view at 88 frames per second with a particular exposure gamma and white balance settings and these settings programmed into the camera memory The next time the camera is initialized on any PC it will default to these settings On board and real tim
39. e Descriptor See Descriptor Structure Format IIDC 1 31 Frame padding region N Number of bytes per frame width height bytes per pixel If multiple descriptors are being used then a synchronization code will be encoded in the first four pixels This code is to ensure that the driver knows which frame it is receiving from the camera in case the frame size changes between descriptors The code is encoded as Byte 0 Bits 7 0 Byte 1 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 7 Byte 2 Bits 7 0 Byte 3 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 6 Byte 4 Bits 7 0 Byte 5 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 5 Byte 6 Bits 7 0 Byte 7 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 4 Byte 8 Bits 7 0 Byte 9 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 3 Byte 10 Bits 7 0 Byte 11 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 2 Byte 12 Bits 7 0 Byte 13 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 1 Byte 14 Bits 7 1 Byte 15 Bits 7 1 Code Bit 0 where Code is a 8 bit number Bit 7 MSB The Code is zero for the first frame of a video stream and will increment by one each frame after that rolling over once it reaches the number of descriptors currently in use i e if three descriptors are in use then the Code will roll over once it reaches 2 9 1 1 Byte Order For 8 bit data the byte order is straight forward with byte 0 being the top left pixel in the image byte 1 being the second pixel in the top row and so on The FireWire bus uses big endian notation that means that the most signific
40. e FFC illumination correction is applied to every pixel on the sensor to provide image quality similar to high end CCD cameras For optimal image quality the FFC can be calibrated in the field The PL A780 camera has a connector for an external trigger and two General Purpose Outputs GPO The trigger and GPOs can be used to connect the camera to external hardware for synchronization and control Multiple cameras can be synchronized together or lighting can be strobed by using these signals The PL A780 cameras use standard FireWire interfaces for plug and play operation The FireWire interface provides power data and control communication from the host computer to the camera over a single cable A second FireWire port on the camera can be used to connect additional cameras in a daisy chain on a single FireWire bus Fully IEEE 1394 IIDC 1 3 IIDC compliant the PL A780 can also be used with third party drivers compatible with the IIDC specification such as the National Instruments IEEE 1394 for IMAQ driver However to fully enable the camera features on Microsoft Windows systems it is recommended to use PixeLINK supplied drivers and the PixeLINK Application Programming Interface API or PixeLINK Developer s Application to control the PL A780 camera PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved A Introduction 2 2 Topics Covered in th
41. e green and blue channels can be calculated as follows quadlet offset of green or blue CSRs ABS_CSR_HI_INQ_14 3 X where X 1 for green and X 2 for blue PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i el IN K All Rights Reserved 54 Feature Modes and Values 8 Feature Modes and Values 8 1 Trigger Modes Trigger Modes 0 5 are defined by the IIDC 1 31 specification The PL A780 only supports Trigger Mode 0 When the trigger is turned on the camera is placed in fast reset shutter mode See Section 3 2 4 2 on page 14 for more information regarding the reset and readout times 8 1 1 Trigger Mode 0 The camera starts integration of the incoming light from external trigger input falling edge sc E External trigger input p a Integration time AS R Reset Integration Readout value Integration time is described in Shutter register No parameter is needed Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Feature Modes and Values 55 8 2 GPO Modes The PL A780 supported GPO modes are defined below The PL A780 supports modes 0 Strobe 1 Normal 3 Busy and 4 Flash Window 8 2 1 GPO MODE 0 STROBE The GPO is set after a trigger occurs The GPO pulse is delayed X GPO Parameter 1 seconds from the trigger and is Y GPO Parameter 2 seconds in duration Externa
42. e required The integration time starts once the array has been fully reset When the integration time is complete readout of the image data starts During the readout period the pixels that have not yet been read are still sensitive and will continue to integrate The readout period can be determined from the equation in Section 3 2 3 on page 12 For the full ROL the readout time is 62 75 us rovv or 188 2 milliseconds All combined the frame interval from trigger to completion of readout is 199 2 milliseconds plus the integration time Fast Reset Shutter requires a trigger event to reset the pixel data and start exposure for the entire ROI as opposed to Rolling Shutter in which exposure is an on going process This trigger event can be generated internally in the camera hardware externally via the trigger input MV connector Section 4 6 2 or by software The PL A780 provides a number of features to control the trigger timing and synchronize with external devices through General Purpose Outputs GPOs See Sections 5 1 3 10 and Section 5 1 4 4 for more information Careful attention to the illumination is required for the best results In Fast Reset Shutter mode strobe illumination should be used and the ambient light should be minimized If using the camera in a brightly lit environment a mechanical shutter may be required to achieve acceptable image quality To simplify the control of lighting when using the Fast Reset Shutter the PL A780
43. eatures are used to control different functions of the camera from things like saturation and gamma to zoom and focus A given camera will only support some of the defined features so controlling software needs to determine which features are supported The IIDC specification defines the Inquiry Registers for feature presence The values of these registers will indicate which features are supported There are also separate inquiry registers for each feature defined in the IIDC specification The value of these registers will provide information about how the specific supported feature can be controlled including the minimum and maximum value of the feature if the feature can be controlled by the user Manual_Inq if the feature s value can be adjusted continuously by the camera Auto_Inq if the feature s value can be adjusted once automatically by the camera One_Push_Inq if the feature can be turned on and off On Off_Inq and if the feature can be controlled with its Absolute Value register see Section 6 5 3 below A supported feature can be controlled through its control register The registers allow controlling software to set the value or change the mode of the feature 6 5 3 Absolute Value CSRs There can be a set of absolute value registers for each supported camera feature The absolute value registers allow for manual control of the feature using 32 bit IEEE floating point values This allows for exact values using engineering u
44. eeeeeentneeeeeeeeeeeeeee 30 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved viii Table 11 Advanced Feature Che 46 Table 12 Feature Element Inquiry CSRs Section 4 5 in the IIDC 1 31 Spec 52 Table 13 Color Coding Inquiry CSR for Format 7 Section 4 9 in the IIDC Spec 53 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Quick Start Instructions 1 1 Quick Start Instructions Install the software you wish to use with the camera prior to connecting the camera to the computer To properly configure the PL A780 for optimum image quality 1 Plug in the camera and open the software 2 Start the preview window 3 Configure the Region of Interest as required to get the proper field of view 4 Set the lens lighting exposure and gain so that no areas in the image are saturated Auto exposure will provide a good starting point 5 Adjust the White Balance feature to match the temperature of the light source The default is incandescent 3200 Kelvin 6 Adjust the white point with the Auto White Shading or Auto White Balance feature This feature uses the highest intensity areas of the scene to assess the white shading Ensure that these areas are white or gray in color Replace high intensity colored objects with a gray or white ca
45. er of entries in the lookup table Quadlet offset of the first entry in the lookup table Each entry occupies a whole number of bytes e g a 10bit entry occupies 2 bytes The table must be written to in order starting from byte 0 Auto ROI Inquiry Presence_Inq Presence of this feature In_Desc_Inq Can this feature have different values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No Reserved Invalid ROI Presence Inq 0 0 Valid ROI 1 Invalid ROI This feature will be ignored until a valid ROI is set The ROI must be within the current image region See NOTE 5 Reserved Presence of this feature Can this feature have different values In Desc Inq 1 in different descriptors 14Ch Rotate Inquiry E D 21 Reserved Quadlet offset of the absolute value 150h Rotate Offset 0 31 CSR for Rotate Presence_Inq 0 Presence of this feature 1 7 Reserved 0 Buffer Empty 1 Buffer Full 154h Frame Buffer Inquiry Buffer_Full 8 When the buffer is full the frame can be read from the camera D 21 Reserved 158h Bufer onet Offset 0 31 Quadlet offset of the memory address for the frame data Length in bytes of the data stored at the buffer address This includes the Teo Buiter Sias vele 0 31 size of the stored frame plus any descriptor information PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE ixe
46. es the Fast Reset Shutter Parameter Default Step Size Comments None Absolute The PL A780 only supports Trigger Mode 0 See Section 8 1 Source Absolute CTE Ge 0 External 1 Internal Polarity Absolute fo 1 o 0 Negative 1 Positive Seconds Absolute 2 5 0 000001 Delay from trigger detection to start of integration Parameter 1 Varies Depends on the Mode See Section 8 1 on page 54 5 1 3 11 Trigger Delay The Trigger Delay control adds a delay to start of integration from the detection of the internal or external trigger event See Section Yes 8 1 on page 54 for more information Turning the trigger delay off One time No disables the effects of the delay This delay is in addition to trigger EE EA latency discussed in Section 4 6 3 1 on page 22 To adjust the trigger debounce delay see Section 4 6 3 1 on page 22 CiD Yes Parameter Unit Type Min Max Default Step Size Comments yp p Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved Pi Se LINK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 35 5 1 3 12 White Balance White Balance defines the color temperature of the light source The camera uses this information to select form one of a number of possible color correction matrices Turning the White Balance off Geen Ves disables the color correction Es NE The PL A782 has color correction settings for 3200 K incandescent
47. escriptor is created it will have the same values as the current descriptor Current field or the camera settings if it is the first descriptor to be created When the descriptor number is decreased then the descriptors with a higher index are removed first NOTE 7 Changing this feature can change the orientation of the Bayer pattern The Format 7 Color Filter ID register should be checked each time this feature is changed 7 1 Extensions to the IIDC Version 1 31 Specification The following sections describe PixeLINK extensions to the IIDC specification to allow for extra functionality within the IIDC address space 7 1 1 Determining which Features can change in a Descriptor All feature element inquiry registers Offset 500h to 5FFh use bit 2 to indicate if the feature can have different values in different descriptors as shown in Table 12 below Table 12 Feature Element Inquiry CSRs Section 4 5 in the IIDC 1 31 Spec Description Same as IIDC Specification Can this feature have different values XX Inquiry Register In Desc Inq in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No Same as IIDC Specification 7 1 1 1 Color Coding The Color Coding Inquiry Register uses bit 31 to indicate if the color coding can change between descriptors Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE PixeLINR Advanced CSRs 53 Table 13 Col
48. g in a 2x2 Bayer pattern This allows details in the blocks to be detected and reduces the effects of the color artifacts The binning mode will sum pixels with similar color within the block reducing the block to a 2x2 Bayer pattern Unlike binning with CCD sensors this summation occurs after the image is digitized so no increase in sensitivity will be noticed but a dark image will appear brighter The resampling mode uses a different approach involving the conversion of the Bayer pattern in the blocks to RGB pixels With a Pixel Addressing value of 1 resampling has no effect With a Pixel Addressing mode of 2 or more resampling will convert the block of 10 bit pixels to one 30 bit RGB pixel by averaging the red green and blue channels The 30 bit RGB value is output from the camera when the video format is set to Y U V mode Resampling will create images with the highest quality and the least artifacts Pixel Addressing will reduce the amount of data coming from the camera However only the Decimate mode will permit an increase in the frame rate Averaging binning and resampling modes will have the same frame rate as if the Pixel Addressing value was 1 no decimation Pixel Addressing works in the same fashion with color or monochrome sensors None Absolute 3 1 0 Decimate 1 Average 2 Bin 3 Resample None Absolute 1 1 1 Pixel Addressing Value of 5 is not supported PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMER
49. gains Gamma e Frame Rate max to 2 fps Trigger amp Strobe Modes e Region of Interest amp Pixel Addressing e Pixel format 8 bit or 10 bit Other Features e Programmable LUT e On camera configuration memory e FPN and PRNU correction gain offset correction flat field correction per pixel Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved PiXe LINK Compatibility e IIDC 1 3 o Format 0 Modes 1 3 5 and 6 o Format 7 Computer Interface e Two FireWire IEEE 1394 connectors allow daisy chaining of the camera Optical Interface e Standard C mount 1 optics IR cut off protective filter Mechanical Interface e M3 threaded holes 4 in front plate around C mount and 4 in camera base Trigger Interface e 6 pin Hirose connector Power Requirements e Power supplied over the FireWire bus e Max consumption 5 W Size and Weight e Standard Configuration PL A782 H x VV x L 1 65 x 1 97 x 4 02 42mm x 50mm x 102mm Weight without lens 200g Environmental e FCC Class B amp CE e Shock 50 G e Vibration 10 G 20 to 200 Hz e Temperature 0 C to 45 C non condensing Status LED e Flashing red and green e Signals indicate idle operating warning and failed status PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE PL A780 Camera Specifications 7 3 2 Sensor The sensor used in the PL A780 cameras is a Fill Factory IBIS4 6600 The IBIS4 6600 i
50. h the Guide was created It is the Purchaser s responsibility to ensure that the information contained within the Sections is maintained as a part of the System Guide at all times should the Purchaser discover that the page s containing the Sections is are missing and or was not provided with the System Guide and or become illegible PixeLINK should be contacted as soon as possible and the Sections requested PixeLINK shall not be held liable for any and all copyright violations that may ensue in relation to its products and or the consequences of their intended and unintended usage June 2004 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE ii Federal Communications Commission FCC Statement FCC testing will be completed in 2004 All units shipped prior to the completion of FCC testing should be considered as prototypes and will be marked with the statement that the FCC rating is pending Note that the PL A780 Series is materially similar to the PL A780 which has passed FCC and CE compliance testing When tested the equipment will be measured against the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation Operation is subject to the following two conditions 1 This device may not cause harmful interference and 2
51. he integration time and the minimum row readout time calculated above Using the example above and assuming a 2 millisecond exposure time the minimum frame interval is 10 7 2 3 55 480 1000 14 40 milliseconds which gives a maximum frame rate of 69 5 frames per second The above calculations determine the maximum frame rates possible The actual frame rates achieved depend on the camera s bandwidth controls other traffic on the FireWire bus and the resources available on the host computer 3 2 4 Operating Modes Rolling Shutter and Fast Reset Shutter The PL A780 has two shutter types e Rolling Shutter free running image capture activated when the trigger feature is turned off and e Fast Reset Shutter triggered image capture activated when the trigger feature is turned on Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE PL A780 Camera Specifications 13 3 2 4 1 Rolling Shutter With a Rolling Shutter only a few rows of pixels are exposed at one time The camera builds a frame by reading out the most exposed row of pixels and ceasing exposure of that row starting exposure of the next unexposed row down in the ROI then repeating the process on the next most exposed row and continuing until the frame is complete After the bottom row of the ROI starts its exposure the process rolls to the top row of the ROI to begin exposure of
52. his document Format 7 Scalable image size user defined size and position For each video format there are several defined modes The mode specifies the exact size of the video data and the size and color information of the pixels i e Mono 8 bit YUV422 16 bit etc A given camera will only support some of the video formats and some of the modes for the supported video formats One of the first things controlling software should do is determine which formats and modes are supported The IIDC specification defines the Inquiry Registry for Video Format This register can be read from offset 0100h or address FFFF FODO 0100h using the example IIDC base address and the value will indicate which formats are supported The IIDC specification defines the Inquiry Registers for Video Modes There is a register for each video format If format 1 is supported then the register at offset 0184h or address FFFF FODO 0184h can be read to determine which modes are supported for format 1 6 5 1 1 Formats 0 1 amp 2 For formats 0 1 amp 2 there are also pre defined frame rates for each video mode The IIDC specification defines the Inquiry Registers for Video Frame Rates There is a separate register for each video mode Read the registers for the supported video modes to determine which frame rates the camera supports 6 5 1 2 Format 7 Format 7 is very flexible allowing the user to specify the width height position and pixel format of the
53. i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE
54. is Guide This Guide provides a reference for the PL A780 specifications operation hardware and connectors It provides detailed information for developers who will be incorporating the camera into a larger machine vision application or using the camera with IIDC drivers Users should consult this Guide to understand the features of the PL A780 camera when mounting the PL A780 within a system or enclosure e when planning to use an external trigger or GPO device e g strobe with the PL A780 e when developing IIDC drivers or software for the PL A780 References in the PDF version of this Guide are hyperlinked for easy navigation and access For information on programming with the PixeLINK Application Programming Interface please refer to the PixeLINK API Reference Manual Part Number 04326 For information on the use of the PL A780 with the PixeLINK Developer s Application please consult the PixeLINK Developer s Application User s Manual Part Number 04328 2 3 Firmware and Hardware Versions amp Variants This guide refers to the following variants of the PL A780 Table 1 PL A780 Variants Product Description Released Number PL A781 BL Monochrome board level OEM module with remote head P PL A782 BL Color board level OEM module with remote head Ps The specifications of the PL A780 cameras may change without notice Generally customers will not notice these changes From time to time PixeLINK may introduce new fe
55. ity Not all the features listed in this table are available with the PixeLINK PL A780 cameras Check the presence bit of the inquiry register to determine if the feature is supported on a particular camera Table 11 Advanced Feature CSRs Offset Bit Description 000h 0 63 Advanced Feature Access Control 004h H Register See NOTE 1 CAMERA INFO REGISTERS READ ONLY Quadlet offset of the Serial Number Serial Number Offset string from the base address of the initial register space Length in bytes of the Serial Number string FPGA Version in format Byte0 Byte1 Byte2 Byte3 Firmware Version in format Byte0 Byte1 Byte2 Byte3 Quadlet offset of the Camera Description string from the base address of the initial register space See NOTE 2 Length in bytes of the Camera Description string Serial Number Length FPGA Version FW Version Camera Description Offset Camera Description Length Reserved for future Camera Info registers ADVANCED FEATURE INQUIRY REGISTERS READ ONLY Presence_Inq Presence of this feature Name Inquiry 1 15 Reserved Maximum length of Camera Name in bytes Quadlet offset of the Camera Name Name Offset Value 0 31 string from the base address of the initial register space See NOTE 2 Max_Length 16 31 Length in bytes of the Camera Name Name Length Value 0 31 string Read Only Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHI
56. ity of 24 pixels The minimum size of the horizontal or vertical dimensions of the ROI is 24 Possible ROI sizes are 24 x 24 24 x 48 48 x 48 48 x 72 2208 x 3000 The top left corner of the ROI can be positioned on any row and column that is a multiple of 24 The resolution can be reduced while maintaining the field of view by subsampling referred to as decimation resampling binning or averaging blocks of pixels Decimation is performed by skipping blocks of pixels The smallest block is a 2 x 2 square or four pixels No decimation has a factor of 1 meaning every pixel block is used To reduce the resolution by a factor of 2 every other block in a row of blocks is used and every other row of blocks is skipped The final resolution will be Ya of the pixels in the ROI Decimation of 3 will skip two blocks of pixels The ROI can be decimated by factors of 1 2 3 4 and 6 This will reduce the image size by factors of 1 4 9 16 and 36 respectively For example with a decimation mode of 6 the FFOV ROI 2208 x 3000 6 6 megapixels can be reduced to 368 x 500 or 184 000 pixels while maintaining the FFOV As the resolution and ROI are reduced the frame rate increases as shown in Table 5 above page on page 6 The following figures demonstrate the effects of decimation and how the 2 x 2 pixel blocks are determined PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K Al
57. l Trigger Input SE GPO Output X Seconds Y Seconds 8 2 2 GPO Mode 1 Normal The GPO is set to either low or high depending on the value of Polarity 8 2 3 GPO Mode 3 Busy The GPO is set whenever the camera is unable to respond to a trigger This is only useful when using Trigger Type Hardware or Software for all other modes it will always be set The busy period is defined as the period from the time a trigger is detected until the captured frame has been read out and any internal housekeeping is completed This mode can be used to detect missed triggers There are no parameters 8 2 4 GPO Mode 4 Flash Window In this mode the GPO indicates the window in which a strobe light source may be fired The GPO signal will be set once the sensor has completed the reset and starts integrating and will be deactivated at the end of the exposure time as readout of the array commences There are no parameters For best results the strobe flash duration plus any delay from the flash window pulse to the start of the strobe flash should be less than the exposure Shutter time PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i el IN K All Rights Reserved 56 Frame Format and Descriptor Structures 9 Frame Format and Descriptor Structures 9 1 Frame Format A frame coming from the camera will have the following format Byte 0 Byte 1 Byte 2 Bag Byte N 2 Byte N 1 Fram
58. l Rights Reserved 8 PL A780 Camera Specifications Figure 1 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 1 No Decimation Figure 2 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 2 Decimation 2x Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i Ket INK SYSTEM GUIDE PL A780 Camera Specifications 9 Figure 4 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 4 Decimation 4x PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 10 PL A780 Camera Specifications Figure 5 Color Bayer Pattern Pixel Addressing Mode 6 Decimation 6x The sensor ROI can also be resampled to combine the signals from a 2 x 2 or larger block of pixels GRBG into one RGB triplet To see how this has an effect it is important to understand that for all other modes the camera converts the Bayer pattern from the sensor into RGB triplets for each pixel taking the missing values of the triplet from the surrounding pixels and creating three times the amount of image data These RGB values are then color corrected and processed before being converted to the selected output type or Color Coding see Section 5 1 3 2 on page 31 for transmission to the host When the output type is Raw or Bayer the RGB image data is converted back to Bayer by dropping two thirds of the data and only transmitting the remaining third
59. lated trigger circuit includes an internal 1 RO input series resistor When using a voltage higher than 12 V add an external resistor with adequate power rating A typical application of the trigger input is to connect Pin 1 POWER to Pin 2 TRIGGER and use the open collector output of an external position sensor device to complete the circuit from Pin 3 TRIGGER to Pin 4 GROUND Timing See Section 8 1 on page 54 PixeLINK API Refer to the functions PxLSetFeature PxLGetFeature on the back of the camera or at the solder end of the mating connector GP1 General Purpose Output o Open collector current sink output GPO 1 for strobe from optical isolator Provides current sink to Pin 4 GROUND ero Ee a Output when GP1 GP2 as ee is active Maximum current is 15 mA Timing See Section 8 2 on page 55 PixeLINR API Refer to the functions PxLSetFeature PxLGetFeature 4 6 3 2 Trigger Connection Examples The trigger inputs can accept floating signals that aren t tied to the camera ground PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE Copyright 2004 PixeLINK Pixe LINK All Rights Reserved 24 Camera Operation amp Features Using an analog trigger switch that connects to ground when a trigger occurs e Connect Pin 1 Power to Pin 2 Trigger e Connect trigger switch between Pin 3 Trigger and Pin 4 Ground More sophisticated examples using TTL logic are sho
60. lization 23 30 input general purpose 29 integration 13 14 15 16 25 37 38 60 Look Up Table See LUT LUT 7 31 35 41 42 54 56 memory 3 7 36 40 41 42 46 55 Memory Channel 30 32 36 mounting 4 22 multiple cameras 23 Pixel Addressing 3 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 31 32 36 43 44 52 55 64 power 22 23 25 readout time 13 15 Region of Interest See ROI registers absolute value 32 33 48 59 feature control 32 33 48 resampled 11 resampling 3 8 11 12 13 43 52 ROI 3 7 8 11 13 14 15 16 31 32 34 36 37 39 43 54 56 57 64 A 1 Rolling Shutter 7 13 14 15 Saturation 31 32 33 36 63 sensor 3 7 8 11 12 13 16 21 22 25 32 37 40 59 61 A 1 Shutter 14 31 32 33 34 37 38 54 56 57 60 63 64 spectral response 16 Status LED 8 23 strobe 3 4 15 16 19 22 24 26 61 synchronization 3 7 41 62 Temperature 8 17 18 32 37 64 thermal considerations 22 timing 13 25 26 Trigger 3 4 7 14 15 16 19 22 24 25 26 31 32 33 34 37 38 52 53 55 56 60 61 64 debounce delay 25 Delay 38 version history 5 video formats 32 47 Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved l 2 White Balance 32 33 39 63 YUV422 11 12 31 47 White Shading 32 39 59 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P
61. lowing behavior e Flashing orange indicates that the camera is initializing e Solid orange indicates that the camera is loading the FFC parameters from memory This process takes approximately 20 seconds e Solid green indicates that the camera is ready for operation e Flashing green indicates that the camera is performing a lengthy operation or is streaming video data e Flashing red indicates that the camera has issued a warning on the latest command received e Solid red indicates that the camera has experienced an unrecoverable error 4 6 3 Machine Vision Connector Trigger and GPOs The PL A780 is equipped with a 6 pin Hirose connector for external control of a trigger strobe or pulse as shown in Figure 10 on page 18 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved ER Camera Operation amp Features The connector pinout is listed in Table 8 on page 23 The connectors interface schematic is shown in Figure 13 below The mating plug for the connector is an HR10A 7P 6P a 6 pin round plug connector with solder cup pins for the cable wires The trigger inputs are designed to work with a floating differential signal which will supply between 5V and 12V across the trigger terminals With the Trigger polarity set to Positive a rising voltage will cause a trigger A falling voltage will cause a trigger if the trigger polarity is negative
62. n menu of the PixeLINK Developer s Application To download the latest versions of the driver and application software please visit the PixeLINK web site http www pixelink com For more information on software and driver compatibility or host system requirements please refer to the PixeLINK API Reference Manual and the PixeLINK Developer s Application User s Manual 2 5 Compatibility with 3 Party Software amp Drivers Testing for compatibility with 3 party software and drivers is on going Please check the PixeLINK web site for the current list of 37 party software packages that are compatible with the PL A780 series cameras PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved PL A780 Camera Specifications 3 PL A780 Camera Specifications 3 1 Features Sensor e 2 3 CMOS 2208 x 3000 resolution 7 73 mm x 10 50 mm 13 1 mm diagonal e 3 5 um square pixels e Rolling Shutter with fast reset capability Frame Rate frames per second Table 5 Frame Rate frames per second Performance e Spectral Range 400 1000 nm e FPN TBD e PRNU TBD e Dynamic Range 56 dB linear TBD Triggering Strobe Flash S W or H W external trigger TTL to 12V e Two user programmable outputs that can be used stand alone or synchronized to trigger Controls e Exposure 0 063 ms to 2 seconds e White balance and color
63. nd Hardware Versions amp Variants 4 2 4 Compatibility with PixeLINK Software amp Drivers 5 2 5 Compatibility with 3 Party Software amp Drivers 5 3 PL A780 Camera Specifications 6 3 1 Features 6 3 2 Sensor 7 3 2 1 ROL Pixel Addressing and Resampling 7 3 2 2 Bit Depth 12 3 2 3 Timing Performance and Data Rates 12 3 2 4 Operating Modes Rolling Shutter and Fast Reset Shutter 12 3 2 4 1 Rolling Shutter 13 3 2 4 2 Fast Reset Shutter 14 3 3 Performance Specifications 15 3 4 Operating Environment 15 3 4 1 Operating Environment Objectives 15 3 4 2 Storage Environment Objectives 16 4 Hardware Overview 17 4 1 PL A780 Hardware Features 17 4 2 PL A780 Hardware Dimensions 17 4 3 PL A780 Handling Instructions 19 4 4 Lens and Protective Glass 19 44 1 Lens 19 4 4 2 Protective Glass 19 4 5 Mounting 20 4 6 Electrical Connections 20 4 6 1 FireWire Power Data amp Control 20 4 6 2 Status LED 21 4 6 3 Machine Vision Connector Trigger and GPOs 21 4 6 3 1 Trigger and GPO Timing 22 4 6 3 2 Trigger Connection Examples 23 4 6 3 3 GPO Connection Examples 25 4 6 3 4 Reading the Trigger Input 26 5 Camera Operation amp Features 27 5 1 Supported IIDC 1 31 Features 27 5 1 1 Camera Initialization 27 5 1 2 Video Format Mode Frame rate 28 5 1 3 IIDC Basic Features 29 5 1 3 1 Frame Rate 30 5 1 3 2 Color Coding 31 5 1 3 3 Gain 31 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i
64. ndustrial environment The housing is machined from aluminum and provides a rigid mounting structure for the internal electronics Vibration testing temperature testing and EMC compatibility testing will all be completed in 2004 Check the PixeLINK web site for updates to this manual 3 4 1 Operating Environment Objectives Table 6 Operating Environment Conditions Condition Limits Temperature 0 C to 45 C 32 F to 113 F Temperature change lt 10 C minute lt 18 F minute Shock 50 G Vibration 10 G at 20 200 Hz Humidity 20 80 non condensing PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 16 PL A780 Camera Specifications 3 4 2 Storage Environment Objectives Table 7 Storage Environment Conditions Condition Limits Temperature 40 C to 75 C 40 F to 167 F Temperature change lt 10 C minute lt 18 F minute Shock 50 G Vibration 10 G at 20 200 Hz Humidity 20 80 non condensing Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Fre LINN SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 17 4 Hardware Overview 4 1 PL A780 Hardware Features Hardware Features e 6 6 Megapixel imager resolution 2208 H x 3000 V e FireWire interface two six pin connectors e Machine Vision interfa
65. nits instead of arbitrary values units for the absolute value registers are defined in Appendix B of the IIDC specification The IIDC specification defines the Absolute Value CSRs Each set of absolute value CSRs consist of three registers a minimum value a maximum value both read only and the current value The IIDC specification defines the offsets of the Absolute Value CSRs for each of the camera features For example to determine the location of the absolute value CSRs for the Brightness feature read the register at offset 0700h or address FFFF FODO 0700h If the value of this register was 0034 0380h then the absolute value CSRs for Brightness would be located at offset 00DO OE00h or address FFFF FODO 0E00h note that this offset is relative to the base address FFFF F000 0000h not the IIDC base address If the values at offsets OE00h 0E04h and 0E08h were 0000 0000h 4000 0000h and 3F80 0000h respectively then the min value would be 0 0 the max would be 2 0 and the current value would be 1 0 6 5 4 Advanced Feature CSRs Some camera vendors may wish to implement features that are not defined by the IIDC specification This is done through the advanced feature register space The IIDC specification defines the Inquiry Register for Basic Functions which indicates if the camera supports these vendor defined features If they are supported then the offset for the Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright
66. nnsmsmtntsss 18 Figure 11 PL A780 e Al 18 Figure 12 PL A780 Bottom EE 18 Figure 13 Machine Vision Connector Interface Schematic ccccccceeeeeeeeeeereeeeeeeees 22 Figure 14 Trigger Input Example TTL AND Gate ccc ee ceneneeeeeeeeeeeeteeeneeeeeeeees 24 Figure 15 Trigger Input Example TTL Inverter eeseseeseeeeeeerrtreeeeererirrrnessssrrrernnneeeee 24 Figure 16 Trigger Input Example An optical trigger and multiple cameras 25 Figure 17 GPO Example Output a TTL Signal ccc eee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeees 25 Figure 18 GPO Example GPO to Trigger ccccccccceeeeeeeeeeseseceeceseeeeeeeeeteceneneeeeeenene 26 List of Tables Table 1 RTE 4 Table 2 Hardware Version History iii i mic ede eee 4 Table 3 Firmware Version History ccccccceeceseeeeencceeeeeeeeensanneeeeeeesenensnnnseeeeeeneeeeseesees 5 Table 4 FPGA Version History EE 5 Table 5 Frame Rate frames per second 6 Table 6 Operating Environment Conditions 22 ccccceeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenees 15 Table 7 Storage Environment Conditions c cceeeeeeeeseeccceeeeeeeeseeseneeeeeneeeeneneees 16 Table 8 Pinout of the 6 Pin Hirose Connectol 2 ccccceseesseseccceeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeetees 23 Table 9 Default settings for PL A780 features 0 0 eee eee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeee 27 Table 10 Feature Control Register Min Max Values ccccccceeeeeee
67. nquiry V Pres Inq 16 Presence of Vertical Flip Can Vertical Flip have different values In_Desc_Inq 17 in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No 18 31 Reserved Presence_Inq 0 In_Desc_Inq 1 2 7 OBSOLETE This has been replaced 120h Advanced Trigger Inquiry with the trigger_source parameter of Trig_Intern_Ing 8 the trigger_mode feature in IIDC v1 31 Trig Type Inq 9 10 31 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket INK All Rights Reserved 48 Trigger Delay Offset Offset PixeLINK Advanced CSRs Description OBSOLETE This has been replaced with the trigger_delay feature in IIDC v1 31 General Purpose Output Inquiry 12Ch GPO Parameter 1 Presence Inq In Desc Ing Presence of this feature Can this feature have different values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No Reserved Number Number of GPO lines 1 15 Mode Ing Presence of GPO Mode 0 Mode Inq Presence of GPO Mode 1 Mode Inq Presence of GPO Mode 2 Mode Ing Presence of GPO Mode 3 Mode4_Inq Presence of GPO Mode 4 Moded_Inq Presence of GPO Mode 5 Mode6 Inq Presence of GPO Mode 6 Mode7 Ing Presence of GPO Mode 7 Mode8 Inq Mode9 Ing Presence of GPO Mode 8 Presence of GPO Mode 9 Mode Ing Presence of GPO Mode 10 Mode11 Ing Presence of GPO Mode 11 Mode12 Ing
68. ol camera settings between frames without communication between the host computer and the camera This allows for rapid changes of camera parameters in a deterministic manner When in rolling shutter mode if the changes affect the sensor the camera will drop a frame and send the next one effectively halving the frame rate Descriptors also provide information about the current camera settings Most of the camera settings will be known to the host computer but a few especially the features that are set to Auto may change without the host s knowledge The descriptor structure is set up in two parts so that all the settings that can change are in the first part and all the known and static settings are in the second The complete descriptor can be written or read from camera memory It is important to check the version of the descriptor structure in order to use the correct structure The first part of the descriptor structure is always appended to each frame For more information on the manner and format in which the data is appended to the frame refer to Section 9 on page 56 For camera control up to 14 descriptors can be created and stored in camera memory The camera will apply each descriptor in turn when capturing images When multiple descriptors are in use the camera will encode a synchronization number in the first 16 bytes of image Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Right
69. or Coding Inquiry CSR for Format 7 Section 4 9 in the IIDC Spec Field i Description Mono8 Y only Y 8bits non compressed 4 1 1 Y U V 8bits non compressed 4 2 2 Y U V 8bits non compressed 4 4 4 Y U V 8bits non compressed RGB8 R G B 8bits non compressed Mono16 Y only Y 16bits non compressed 4 1 1 YUV8 4 2 2 YUV8 4 4 4 YUV8 RGB16 R G B 16bits non compressed Color Coding Inquiry Register Signed Mono16 Y only Y 16bits non compressed signed integer R G B 16bits non compressed Signed RGB16 signed integer Raw data output of color filter RAWS sensor 8bits pixel Bayer pattern Raw data output of color filter SE sensor 16bits pixel Bayer pattern Can the Color Coding ID have different In Desc Ing values in different descriptors 1 Yes 0 No 7 1 2 White Shading Absolute Value Registers The IIDC 1 31 specification defines White Shading as controlling three values the red green and blue channel compensations but only one absolute value register is defined for White Shading This does not allow for control of the separate channel compensations with standard engineering units So extra absolute value registers are defined as follows The offsets for the White Shading absolute value CSRs are defined in the ABS_CSR_HI_INQ_14 register offset 738h This will define the offsets for the red channel compensation CSRs The absolute value CSR offsets for th
70. padded with zeros in the least significant bits to create 16 bit words Compared to the 8 bit mode the 10 bit mode requires twice the bandwidth on the FireWire bus and will result in a drop in frame rate 3 2 3 Timing Performance and Data Rates The PL A780 sensor uses a 40 MHz pixel clock to read out pixel data at 25 nanoseconds per pixel Each row also has a delay of 7 3 useconds and is padded with 10 isolation pixels The minimum row readout time in microseconds is given by MinRowreadoutTime us 1 3us 25ns Npixels 10 1000 where Npixels is the number of active pixels in the row For the full ROI the row readout time is 7 3 25 2208 10 1000 62 75 us row For Rolling Shutter operation see Section 3 2 4 below with very short exposures the minimum frame interval can be calculated by multiplying the minimum row readout time by the number of rows in the image For example with a 1200 x 960 ROI decimated by 2 the output image would be 600 x 480 This ROI could be readout once every 480 7 3 25 600 1000 1000 10 7 milliseconds or at a maximum frame rate of 93 4 frames per second In this example the maximum frame rate is valid for exposures of 10 7 milliseconds or less For exposures greater than 10 7 milliseconds the frame rate is a function of the exposure time For Fast Reset Shutter operation see Section 3 2 4 below the minimum frame interval can be found by adding together the row reset time of 3 55 useconds rovv t
71. pling and Averaging on Image Quality Binning will provide image quality similar to the averaging mode but the image will be much brighter by roughly the square of the Pixel Addressing factor Note that in CMOS sensors the binning is performed off chip after the conversion from analog to digital so there is no increase in sensitivity or speed frame rate compared with the non binning mode Which Pixel Addressing mode is used depends on the objectives For the very best image quality when capturing images for printing or analysis use the full resolution For fast video PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA I Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ker INK All Rights Reserved 12 PL A780 Camera Specifications preview at high frame rates with short exposure times use the decimation mode For slower high quality video preview or when exposure times are long use resampling 3 2 2 Bit Depth The analog image data from the sensor is digitized to 12 bits and then truncated to 10 bits prior to image processing in the camera electronics Full gain and offset corrections are performed along with pixel correction to eliminate fixed pattern noise FPN and Photo Response Non Uniformity PRNU On color cameras color corrections are performed to convert sensor RGB to calibrated RGB for accurate color reproduction The output data stream can be set to either 8 bit or 10 bit mode In 10 bit mode the 10 bit data is
72. process are included in the application dialog boxes PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 2 Quick Start Instructions Before evaluating the camera on image quality users should determine the exposure and gain settings required based on the factory calibration for the lens and lighting used in their application Then with the subject removed and with a uniform surface under examination perform the FFC calibration Once this is complete continue with the evaluation of the image quality If a single gain and exposure setting is not possible there will be practical limits on the gain and exposure times that can be used before the noise artifacts cause unacceptable degradation to the image quality Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Introduction 3 2 Introduction 2 1 The PL A780 Series 6 6 Megapixel Camera The PL A780 Series of cameras use a 6 6 megapixel CMOS sensor to achieve high resolution images for industrial inspection applications The PL A780 comes in monochrome PL A781 and color PL A782 versions suitable for industrial machine vision applications The sensor used has 2208 H by 3000 V pixels with a pitch of 3 5 microns The color camera uses a Bayer mosaic pattern on the sensor to detect the various colors Connecte
73. r input I Optional camera 4 LE Figure 16 Trigger Input Example An optical trigger and multiple cameras 4 6 3 3 GPO Connection Examples The GPO pins are open collector current sink outputs To use them the output line must be pulled high by the external circuit with a maximum current of 15 mA Figure 17 below shows the GPO outputs from the camera being used to output a TTL signal Figure 18 on page 26 shows the GPO from one camera being used to trigger a second camera Rising edge on GPO positive output 74HCO4 External GPO circuit example 1 TTL style output Camera internal circuit Figure 17 GPO Example Output a TTL signal PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i el IN K All Rights Reserved 26 Camera Operation amp Features Firewire cable power typically 12V from PC GPO2 current output 15 mA max External GPO circuit example 2 GPO to Trigger Camera 1 internal circuit Camera ground Trigger input 5V to 12V 4 mAto 11 mA 1K ohm Camera 2 internal circuit Trigger input r Optional camera 3 L Figure 18 GPO Example GPO to Trigger 4 6 3 4 Reading the Trigger Input The raw value of the trigger input can be read from the IIDC Trigger Inquiry register This can be used as a general purpose input if one is required Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyrigh
74. rame Rate control will be turned OFF When the Frame Rate control is OFF the frame rate value defaults to the maximum isochronous frame rate The frame rate is then a function of the exposure time for exposures longer than the inverse of the frame rate value For shorter exposure times the frame rate will be constant The absolute maximum frame rate is achieved by using asynchronous communication on the FireWire bus To set the maximum output frame rate ensure the Frame Rate control is ON and set the control to its maximum value The minimum frame rate maximum frame interval in rolling shutter mode See Section 3 2 3 on page 12 is determined by the ROI height number of pixel rows The equation below determines the maximum frame interval in milliseconds for a given ROI height MaxFramelnterval 0 8192 ROI Height In Fast Reset Shutter mode see Section 3 2 3 on page 12 the Frame Rate control can be used to control the bandwidth on the FireWire bus The frame interval can be effectively controlled by the trigger or by adding delays to the internal trigger The maximum internal delay is 2 5 seconds Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 31 Frame Rate fps Absolute Varies Max Varies Step size varies with the from 2 ISO number of rows in the image It is essentially the readout time of one column
75. rd and ensure there is little or no saturation occurring in the image i e gray is better than bright white 7 Adjust gamma and saturation controls as required to achieve the best image quality Note that the PL A780 camera like any CMOS device is subject to the physics of the sensor design Fixed Pattern Noise FPN Photo Response Non Uniformity PRNU stuck pixels read noise and thermal noise are an inherent part of the sensor The effects of the noise vary with gain and exposure time Uncorrected these noise sources can cause significant image artifacts The PL A780 corrects for these noise artifacts with pixel by pixel flat field correction Internal to the camera a gain and offset is applied to each pixel so that the overall sensor has a uniform response In addition stuck pixels are corrected by replacing their value with the average of the neighboring pixels The FFC is factory calibrated at zero gain with a standard diffuse light source and no lens While the calibration can be used at other camera settings it is only valid for the gain and exposure setting used during the calibration At other settings image artifacts may be apparent For the best results it is strongly recommended that users of the PL A780 perform a FFC calibration with the lens and lighting that will be used in the field A software tool is available as part of the PixeLINK Demonstration Application or Developer s Kit installation Instructions on the
76. rows so Rolling Shutter can produce a distorted effect when imaging moving subjects even with very short exposure times The distortion is due to the comparatively lengthy process of readout compared to exposure For example to readout the entire PL A780 frame requires approximately 250 milliseconds While a short exposure may stop a moving object the same object can move appreciably in the quarter second that it takes to readout the frame resulting in distortion in the direction of motion For best results rolling shutter should be used with constant illumination and with a static subject If strobe illumination is required or the object is moving the Fast Reset Shutter mode should be used PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 14 PL A780 Camera Specifications 3 2 4 2 Fast Reset Shutter With Fast Reset Shutter all rows in the ROI are reset row by row then exposed simultaneously for a specified time At the end of the exposure time the pixel values are read out row by row The row by row reset is faster than the readout process but it is not instant or global It takes 3 5 useconds per row to reset the array and rows at the top of the ROI start integration as soon as they are reset For the full field of view the reset operation will take 11 milliseconds Smaller ROIs or decimation will reduce the number or rows and hence the reset tim
77. rved for future Advanced Feature Control Registers NOTE 1 The Feature_ld field of the Advanced Feature Access Control Register is a 48bit value with the following format 0 7 8 15 16 23 24 31 32 39 40 47 PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 52 PixeLINK Advanced CSRs Company ID Advanced Feature Unique ID 0x000168 Feature offset For example The Feature Id field for the FLIP_INQ CSR would be 0x0001680001 14 NOTE 2 You do not have to access the Access Control Register to Read Write to the value at the offset pointed to by the value in this register NOTE 3 These are the offsets for the absolute value CSRs for the parameters of GPO 0 The absolute value CSR offsets for GPO X can be calculated as follows quadlet offset of Parameter N GPO X GPO_PARMN_ABS 3 X NOTE 4 This is the offset for the absolute value CSR for the Extended Shutter Knee Point 0 The absolute value CSR offsets for Knee Point X can be calculated as follows quadlet offset of Knee Point X XSHUT_KNEE_ABS 3 X NOTE 5 In all formats the Auto ROI must be within an image region that has Top and Left coordinates of zero and Height and Width values that correspond to the current Video height and width NOTE 6 Descriptors are added or removed by increasing decreasing this value When a d
78. s such as laptop computers or those with several FireWire devices daisy chained require an external 12 V supply to power the camera This external power supply must be connected to the FireWire bus For information about laptop accessory kits that include external power supplies contact your PixeLINK vendor Power Demand A single PL A780 draws 5 watts from the FireWire cable or 417 mA 12 V Power Limitations The power capacity of the bus depends on the FireWire adapter card installed in the host computer To comply with the FireWire specification the adapter card may supply a maximum of 1 5 A per FireWire port However it is permissible for the card s limit to be lower than 1 5 A per port say 1 0 A Note that many cards do not state their current limits In a multiple camera system the current required per camera increases with each additional camera attached to the bus Each additional camera causes the bus voltage to drop so the current demand is increased to maintain a constant power draw of 5 W per camera Hence most two port FireWire adapter cards can be used to power two cameras simultaneously If the current demand exceeds the card capacity the status lights on the cameras will switch off The status light is located above the FireWire connectors as shown in Figure 10 on page 18 4 6 2 Status LED The PL A780 has a Status LED that indicates the hardware and operational status of the camera The LED indicates the fol
79. s Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 37 data returned from the camera The format of the synchronization code is shown in Section 9 on page 56 Descriptors are created by increasing the number of descriptors in the descriptor configuration CSR A new descriptor will have the same values as the current descriptor or if it is the first descriptor created the camera settings With more than one descriptor the camera will cycle through the descriptors repetitively Descriptors can be changed by updating the descriptor values in camera memory To delete a descriptor reduce the number of descriptors in the descriptor configuration CSR The highest indexed descriptors will be deleted first For more information on the descriptor structures refer to Section 9 2 on page 57 5 1 4 4 General Purpose Outputs General Purpose Output GPO signals are controlled by this feature The output signal is defined by a mode polarity and a number of parameters that vary in meaning with the mode For a One time No complete description of the PL A780 GPO modes and settings see ES E a 4 GPO signals can be controlled GPO numbers 1 and 2 are available externally 3 and 4 are only available on the board level variant of the PL A780 Applies to PL A780 cameras only oe fwe o a of 4 pen asso o Pr 0 Liege Poste Parameter 1 See Section 8 2 for details Parameter 2 Parameter 3 5 1 4 5 Look Up Ta
80. s a 6 6 megapixel solid state CMOS image sensor with 2210 x 3002 active pixels The image size is fully programmable to a user defined ROI Pixels are on a 3 5 um pitch The color version of the sensor uses a Bayer pattern to generate the RGB information This is a common approach to detect color with a single sensor and is used extensively in the industry The Bayer pattern consists of color filters placed over each pixel in alternating green red on the odd rows and blue green on the even rows To determine the RGB color of any particular pixel a Bayer to RGB conversion is performed where the color information of neighboring pixels is used to determine the missing components of the RGB color for a particular pixel The Bayer to RGB conversion has the effect of a smearing filter and slightly reduces the effective resolution or resolving power of the sensor It also can introduce colored artifacts into an image on the edges of high contrast areas Resampling the image as discussed below can reduce both of these effects The monochrome version of the sensor behaves in the same manner as the color version for ROI pixel addressing and resampling The monochrome version does not use the Bayer pattern and Bayer to RGB conversions are not applied 3 2 1 ROI Pixel Addressing and Resampling The implementation of the sensor in the PL A780 limits the active area to 2208 x 3000 Within this Full Field of VIEW FFOV the ROI size and position has a granular
81. s are O for factory defaults or 1 for memory channel 1 One time No Auto Memory None Absolute 1 1 1 Channel 5 1 3 6 Region of Interest Under video format 7 the ROI control sets the area on the imager No that is active Together with the Pixel Addressing mode and the Yes pixel format the ROI control determines the total number of pixels Auto in a frame and the total size of the image The smallest ROI possible is 24 x 24 pixels The ROI can be positioned with a Off N granularity of 24 pixels in both horizontal and vertical directions DI ww coms ase o aa o a _ Rows ase o r o a SCSC coms D se 24 28 20a Lal C Rows ase 24 2000 oo a pe Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 5 1 3 7 Saturation Saturation controls the intensity of the hues in the image The saturation control allows the hue to be changed from full mono to twice the normal hue Saturation is applicable to color cameras only 33 One time No Auto 5 1 3 8 Shutter Shutter controls the integration time of the sensor The shutter can be controlled manually once automatically or fully automatically In the auto modes the camera will attempt to set the shutter feature such that a small portion of the scene is saturated In rolling shutter mode See the Trigger feature Section 5 1 3 10
82. s can change between frames with descriptors e Parameters whether the feature requires parameters Each parameter has a name unit of measure and a type relative or absolute Min value Max Value Default and Step size 5 1 1 Camera Initialization The PL A780 camera can be initialized on command On initialization the camera will load the configuration parameters stored in Memory Channel 1 When the camera is delivered the configuration in Memory Channel 1 matches the factory defaults in Memory Channel 0 Memory Channel 1 parameters can be set by the user so that the camera can be initialized to a user defined state This allows the camera to be configured on one system and then used on another computer without the need for camera configuration files on the two systems The camera can be initialized on command to the settings in Memory Channel 0 factory defaults or Memory Channel 1 See Section 5 1 3 5 on page 32 for more information The following table shows the factory default settings for the controllable camera features of the PL A782 Table 9 Default settings for PL A780 features PixeLINK PL A780 Document No 04646 01 MACHINE VISION CAMERA f Copyright 2004 PixeLINK SYSTEM GUIDE P i Ket IN K All Rights Reserved 28 Camera Operation amp Features Feature Default Value PL A782 Color Coding YUV422 Pixel Addressing 1 No decimation Pixel Addressing Mode 0 Decimate Frame Rate Off Gain Odb Gain Blue 1
83. s knowledge float fAutoExposure ZE float fSharpness float fHue float fGamma float flIris float fFocus float fTemperature float fTriggerParamter float fTriggerDelay float fZoomy float fPan float fTilt float fOpticalFilter float fAutoROILeft float fAutoROITop float fAutoROIWidth float fAutoROIHeight float fRotate float fFrameRate float fLeft float fTop float fWidth float fHeight float fPixelAddressingValue float fPixelAddressinMode float fPixelFormat float fKneePoint 4 float fGPOParameterl1 16 float fGPOParameter2 161 float fGPOParameter3 161 U8 byGPOMode 16 GPO Mode U8 byGPOPolarity 16 U8 byTriggerMode U8 byTriggerPolarity U8 byTriggerType U8 byReserved DESCRIPTOR PDESCRIPTOR endif FRAME STRUCTURE Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved PiXe LINK Frame Format and Descriptor Structures Auto Exposure Sharpness Hue Gamma Iris Focus Temperature Parameter for Trigger Trigger Delay Zoom Pan OS Ee Optical Filter Auto ROI Left Auto ROI Top Auto ROI Width Auto ROI Height Angle of Rotation Frame Rate ROI Left ROI Top ROI Width ROI Height Pixel Addressing Value Pixel Addressing Mode Pixel Format Extended Shutter Knee Point G G G G T T PO Parameter 1 PO
84. s to allow the sensor to fully reset before the flash fires When the trigger arrives at the camera the camera will wait for 8 milliseconds before commencing the fast reset of the sensor which will be completed approximately 11 milliseconds later 19 milliseconds after the trigger event GPO 1 will wait for 20 milliseconds after the trigger before it fires the flash 4 milliseconds after the fast reset is complete the readout begins and takes approximately 188 milliseconds to complete The whole process from trigger to end of readout takes 211 milliseconds Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE PL A780 Camera Specifications 15 3 3 Performance Specifications The PL A780 responds to visible light in the 400 1000 nm range The chart of spectral response is shown in Figure 8 below Performance figures for FPN PRNU and dynamic range are currently being measured Accurate test data will be published as soon as it is available Spectral Response QE 40 QE 30 QE 20 QE 10 3 5 um x 3 5 um pixel array E o o o a lt o o El a o o T Es 5 0 o 3 o o o Ei ei o gt o o 700 VVavelength nm Figure 8 PL A780 Spectral Response 3 4 Operating Environment The PL A780 camera is designed to operate in a dry i
85. sing feature controls the number of pixels that Aut N are read from the ROI See Section 3 2 1 on page 7 for more information Yes I i One time No Pixel Addressing is controlled by two parameters a Pixel Auto Addressing mode and a value The mode of Pixel Addressing can be decimate 0 averaging 1 binning 2 or resampling 3 The Pixel Addressing value can be one of 1 2 3 4 or 6 SB With a Pixel Addressing value of 1 the Pixel Addressing mode has no effect and all pixels in the ROI will be returned For Pixel Addressing values greater than 1 the number of pixels will be reduced by the square of the value For example a Pixel Addressing value of 2 will result in Ya of the pixels The Pixel Addressing mode determines how the number of pixels is reduced The Pixel Addressing value can be considered as the size of a block of pixels made up of 2x2 groups For example a Pixel Addressing value of 3 will reduce a 6 x 6 block of pixels to a 2 x 2 block a reduction of 4 36 or 1 9 The decimate mode will drop pixels all the pixels in the block except for the top left group of four This creates the 2x2 blocks of pixels shown in Figure 2 to Figure 5 on page 8 At the highest Pixel Addressing value of 6 a 12 x 12 block of pixels is reduced to 2 x 2 At this level of reduction detail in the scene can be lost and color artifacts introduced The averaging mode will average pixels with the similar color within the block resultin
86. t 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved P i Ket INK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 27 5 Camera Operation amp Features 5 1 Supported IIDC 1 31 Features The PL A780 camera is IIDC 1 31 compliant All registers and communications follow the IIDC 1 31 specification Advanced Control and Status Registers CSRs are provided to support custom features This section describes the features and controls of the PL A780 camera For each feature the set of values that define the feature in the IIDC specification are provided In addition information not included in the IIDC specification is provided to improve usability The camera supports all the features listed here Any IIDC feature not listed is not supported Features that are specific to a particular camera model are so indicated The following information defines the feature e Auto whether the feature can be controlled automatically E G Auto exposure can maintain the correct exposure during changing illumination e Manual whether the feature can be controlled manually E G the Exposure is set to 10 ms e One time Auto whether the feature can be controlled automatically for a short period and then returned to manual mode E G the exposure is set automatically for the current illumination settings and then fixed at that value e Off whether the feature can be turned off e Change in Descriptors CiD whether the feature setting
87. th 1394 and the control and status register architecture This does not make it well suited for developers with little or no 1394 experience who wish to understand how software communicates with an IIDC compliant camera There are also several sections in the specification that are vague enough that they could be interpreted in several ways This section will provide an overview of IIDC and help in interpreting the IIDC specification 6 2 Useful Definitions e CSR Control and Status Register A 4 byte control register used in 1394 devices e Quadlet A 4 byte value e Configuration ROM A portion of a 1394 device s address space that contains configuration information about the device e Bus Info Block A portion of a 1394 device s Configuration ROM that specifies a variety of bus related capabilities e Root Directory A portion of a 1394 device s Configuration ROM that provides information necessary for the device to be identified along with pointers to other directories and data structures e Unit Directory A portion of a 1394 device s Configuration ROM that provides information about a specific function of the device e Quadlet Offset This term is used throughout the IIDC specification and means the number of Quadlets from a specified base address l e if a quadlet offset is determined to be 100h then the actual address offset would be 400h e IDC Base Address The base address of the IIDC address sp
88. the next frame s pixels The exposure down each frame and from frame to frame remains consistent due to this continuous read out The row read out rate is constant so the longer the exposure setting the greater the number of rows being exposed or integrated at a given time Rows are added to the exposed area one at a time The more time that a row spends being integrated the greater the electrical charge built up in the row s pixels and the brighter the output pixels will be As each fully exposed row is read out another row is added to the set of rows being integrated Example A very short exposure may be obtained by having only three rows of integration see Figure 7 below This means that as each row is being read out the three rows ahead of it are being exposed As each row is read out another row is added to the group of rows being integrated The arrowhead indicates the row currently being read out Dashed lines indicate inactive rows e The three solid lines preceding the read out row indicate the rows being integrated Figure 7 Rolling Shutter Integration and Read Out Because Rolling Shutter exposes rows in the integration area while reading out fully exposed rows that is it does not stop exposure to perform read out it provides evenly exposed image data with the greatest possible speed under the given parameters Each row of pixels has a slightly different exposure start and end times from the adjacent
89. this device must accept any interference received including interference that may cause undesired operation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures o Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna o Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver o Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected o Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help Properly shielded and grounded cables and connectors must be used to meet FCC emission limits PixeLINK is not responsible for any radio or television interference caused by using other than recommended cables or connectors Unauthorized changes or modifications to the equipment could void the user s authority to operate the equipment European Community CE Statement Testing for product safety compliance in the European Community will be completed in 2004 Units shipped prior to the completion of the testing should be considere
90. tion defines the format of the Configuration ROM for IIDC cameras The offsets listed in the Root Directory table are all relative to the base address FFFF F000 0000h To determine the location of the Unit Directory the unit_directory_offset field must be read from offset 0424h or address FFFF F000 0424h This field consists of an identifying key and a relative quadlet offset The identifying key is an 8 bit value that for the unit directory offset is D1h So if the value in the unit directory offset field is D100 0004h then the offset for the unit directory is 0424h 4 04h 0434h or address FFFF F000 0434h To determine the location oof the Unit Dependent Directory the unit_dependent_directory_offset field must be read from offset 000Ch of the Unit Directory or address FFFF F000 0440h using the above example unit directory offset The identifying key for the unit dependent directory offset is D4h So if the value in the unit_dependent_directory_offset field is D400 0001h then the offset for the unit dependent directory is 0440h 04h 0444h or address FFFF F000 0444h The Unit Dependent Directory contains among other things the IDC Base Address which can be read from the command regs base field of the Unit Dependent Directory The identifying key for the command_regs_base field is 40h So if the value of that field is 4034 0000h then the offset of the IIDC address space is 00D0 0000h or the IIDC Base Address is FFFF FODO 0000h NOT
91. ttings set CommandCode to 0x00008001 Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights Reserved P i el INK SYSTEM GUIDE Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 41 6 Developing Softvvare for the PL A780 The purpose of this section is to give the reader a basic introduction to the IIDC Digital Camera v1 31 specification and to provide a basic description of how software could be written to communicate with an IIDC compliant camera To make use of the information presented here please refer to the following related documentation IIDC 1394 based Digital Camera Specification Version 1 31 IEEE 1394 1995 Serial Bus Specification IEEE 1394a Supplement CSR Architecture Specification ISO IEC 13212 ANSI IEEE 1212 The PixeLINK SDK is a high level Application Programming Interface API compatible with C C and Visual Basic It provides low level drivers and a high level software interface to the camera that simplifies the task of controlling PixeLINK cameras Details on the API functions can be found in the PixeLINK API Reference Manual If you are using the PixeLINK SDK you do not need to read this section 6 1 Introduction The IIDC Specification was written to act as a design guide for digital camera makers wishing to have cameras that would be interoperable across many different software applications and systems As a result it is fairly technical and assumes familiarity wi
92. wn in Figure 14 and Figure 15 below Figure 16 on page 25 shows an example using an optical trigger where the optical sensor is used to trigger multiple cameras Note that with such a device there will be some noise as the signal is switched and the camera s debounce clock should be reduced to 100KHz to avoid multiple triggers Rising edge for positive trigger in camera Camera internal circuit gt External trigger circuit Ke NE ep EE T example 1 TTL style source Figure 14 Trigger Input Example TTL AND Gate Trigger input 5V to 12V 4 mA to 11 mA External trigger circuit DV example 2 TTL style sink 1K ohm q 2 S a O 3 Rising edge for positive o D trigger in camera Camera internal circuit I 74HC04 Figure 15 Trigger Input Example TTL Inverter Document No 04646 01 PixeLINK PL A780 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK MACHINE VISION CAMERA All Rights Reserved Pi se LINK SYSTEM GUIDE Camera Operation amp Features 25 510 ohm 1 2 watt Trigger input 5V to 12V 4mAto 11 mA 1K ohm Slotted Optical Switch eg Optek OPB841W55 Camera 1 internal circuit Open the optical slot for current flow and positive trigger in camera s V Camera ground Trigger input External trigger circuit A example 3 Optical switch Optional camera 2 Note this circuit requires 100 KHz Trigger Debounce Trigger input Optional camera 3 Trigge
93. x A Glossary 1394 Bayer pattern or filter API Decimation DLL Field of Vievv FireWire GPO IEEE Integration FPN fps MB MHz PRNU RAM Resolution RGB Sensor ROI Video stream PixeLINK PL A780 MACHINE VISION CAMERA SYSTEM GUIDE A short form description for the IEEE 1394 FireWire bus Color filters arranged in a mosaic pattern that allows three color channels to be detected in an array of pixels Application Programming Interface The process of skipping pixel data in the image to reduce the image size Dynamic Link Library A term that refers to the relative angular size of an image Apple Computers trademark for the IEEE 1394 digital bus protocol General Purpose Output Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The process of building up or integrating an electrical charge in response to the photons incident to a pixel Fixed pattern noise The frame rate in frames per second Megabyte Megahertz Photo response non uniformity Random Access Memory The number of pixels in an image Standard for encoding color images Red Green Blue The Camera s image sensing chip Region of Interest The portion of the imager area that is active The video image data sent over the FireWire bus cable from the camera to the host computer This is the source of data for the preview window and any captured images or video clips Document No 04646 01 Copyright 2004 PixeLINK All Rights
94. y for any errors or omissions in this document PixeLINK shall not be held liable for any errors or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing performance or use of this System Guide or the examples herein PixeLINK assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss resulting from the use of this System Guide loss or claims by third parties which may arise through the use of this product any damage or loss caused by deletion of data as a result of malfunction or repair or any other damage related to the use of this product or associated documentation The information in this document is subject to change without notice Definitions of Intellectual Property and Trademark Attributions This Section is intended to ensure proper attribution and honoring of any and all trademarks and intellectual property items in terms of attribution to their respective owners as mentioned in this System Guide The reader is encouraged to consult this Section whenever uncertainty presents itself as to the terms their meaning within the System Guide and the trademarks and intellectual property items they stand to identify whether by themselves or in conjunction with other terms and items PixeLINK is either a trademark or a registered trademark of PixeLINK in Canada and or other countries IEEE is a registered trademark or service mark of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Incorporated in the United States and or other

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PixeLINK™ PL-A780 6.6 Megapixel Camera System Guide