L3C95 All Light Level Camera User Manual
Contents
1. Files may be saved in either FITS or AVI format or both simultaneously The FITS format is recommended for scientific applications AVI is for TA file visual record only E Save FITS fie File name ER The user may choose the number of frames to be saved by entering a number into the Number of frames window E Save Av file File none 1 CAUTION Image data is initially streamed to PC RAM memory and will be saved to the defined location on completion of Capture The user must ensure that adequate memory resource is available to capture the required number of frames 4 7 1 1 File location Clicking the EA button opens another window which allows the user to define file location When the details are correctly entered image capture is initiated by clicking the Capture button 4 7 2 Playback In order to playback a previously recorded file the file must be selected by clicking the ieee button A list of files will be offered Choose the required file and click Open File details will appear in the Current File windows Playback plays back all frames once only ee Loop plays back all frames continuous loo To initiate playback use the Tape Transport Controls ver E Pause Freezes play back restart with Playback or Loop Stop Cancels playback Full screen mode plays back at maximum image resolution Esc key returns to normal mode o Optional Features 5 12. pulse with the width of the pulse defining the Integration Interval kd Teles 5zZ5 31 dama edle 7 bald Theo 525976 67m Ben FRAME STNC GRAB Bush tone Sect LT rabo hold li shore in Roada in Aush store section LT rate me Er m Bush image section 5 5 ado LT hase i integrate image ny o AR N Aush image section LT rato l i a pen i op Ach LT rae E L_ Fame Irnriwer n mop Mush LT rabo A image serilon Image l Stone Tage Sedia Rush FT rele Slop integration In Auen PT ro image sepliant Slop Aush LT nate Tage Sie BE fE Se CER Camera Features 4 4 4 Post Filter Gain Note This feature is available only if Manual gain is selected CAUTION Selection of this feature at high light levels may result in clipping of the white portion of the image This feature allows the user to insert an additional x2 gain after the filter function Gain is introduced in the digital domain by left shifting the Video data It is recommended that this feature only be used at the very lowest illumination levels 4 4 5 Back light Compensation In circumstances where a Subject is silhouetted against a bright background the action of the ALC circuits may mean that it is difficult to resolve detail in the subject This feature introduces an extra x2 gain causing the background to be clipped whilst revealing additional subject detail Note This feature wi
3. Windows 2000 or XP The user may also generate control commands within their own application The Command structure is defined in Appendix 6 4 When the Camera is connected to a suitable PC and the Camera GUI is active the Camera will automatically identify itself and if a USB2 0 link is available will initiate transfer of Video images to the PC at 50Hz 06 or 60Hz 05 field rate The e2v technologies Vendor ID is OFD3H Product ID is 0400H for CCIR and 0401H for EIA The RS232 port is provided to allow control of the Camera in circumstances where the user either does not have access to a USB port or where the PC is located at a greater distance from the Camera In order to use this port the equipment transmitting the commands must be set to the following standard 9600 Baud 8 bit data 1 start bit 1 stop bit No parity No flow control This port may be used with the Camera GUI but in this case will provide control only The GUI is designed to automatically revert to RS232 operation if a USB link is unavailable Provision is made within the GUI for selection of any COM port available on the PC The Camera Syncs port provides Field line and pixels sync outputs for the synchronisation of external equipment A composite sync input provides for synchronisation genlocking of the Camera to an external source A separate input allows the user to control extended integration in association with the appropriate setting in the Ca
4. connector see Wiring Details below It is the user system integrator s responsibility to ensure that the Camera is powered as per e2v technologies recommendations Failure to do so will nullify the EMC certification for the Camera In such cases it is the user system integrator s responsibility to ensure that their installation meets current EMC regulations for such an installation 3 1 2 Operating in Humid Environments Wiring Details HR10 1 2 12 volt 3 4 OV return CAUTION The Camera is protected against reverse connection but if this should occur it will be necessary to replace an internal fuse NOTE The Camera is supplied with a clip on ferrite bead and a cable tie The bead MUST be fitted around the power cable close to the HR1o connector and it should be kept in position with the cable tie In order to obtain optimum performance from the Camera over a wide temperature range the CCD sensor is cooled with a Thermo Electric Cooler TEC The Camera electronics monitors the CCD temperature and aims to maintain it at a fixed value entered in the Camera set up Menu see Camera set up Therefore power consumption will vary between 6W and 12W depending upon the ambient temperature When the Camera is first switched on the cooling circuit will demand maximum power until the CCD temperature is stabilised therefore the user should ensure the power supply is capable of starting normally with maximum demand Commissi
5. L3C95 All Light Level Camera User Manual e2v technologies 2005 Contents e2v technologies 2 Statutory and Regulatory 2 1 Safety Compliance When operating the Camera within the European Economic Area EEA Australia and New Zealand it is the user system integrator s responsibility to ensure that they select an appropriate Class 1 ac dc power supply which conforms to local electrical safety regulations This will ensure the electrical safety of the L3C95 All Light Level Camera during its operation When operating the Camera within United States Of America Canada and Japan it is the user system integrator s responsibility to ensure that they select an appropriate Class 2 ac dc power supply that conforms to local electrical safety regulations This will ensure the electrical safety of the L3C95 All Light Level Camera during its operation 2 2 EMC Compliance When used with a suitable class 1 power supply within the European Economic Area EEA the L3C95 All Light Level Camera meets the requirements of the Electromagnetic Compatibility EMC Directive 89 336 EEC as amended by 91 31 EEC and 93 68 EEC by compliance with EN61000 6 2 and EN61000 6 3 When used with a suitable class 1 power supply in Australia and New Zealand this device complies with AS NZ 3548 When used with a suitable class 2 ac dc power supply the L3C95 All Light Level Camera conforms to FCC CFR 47 part B emissions requiremen
6. LCP Shutter These cameras are available with an LCP shutter indicated by S suffix on the Part Number This shutter is arranged to diffuse light during the frame transfer interval which is approximately 300 microseconds at the end of each field period The shutter is recommended for use in scenes including bright point sources In these circumstances it will significantly reduce the effects of Frame Shift Smear 6 Appendices 6 1 Camera Block Diagram CCD Timing Data transfer CCD DSP DSP USB 2 0 lfp video processing ALC Auto Iris E Framestore DSP amp Logic control 6 2 Functional Description The Camera comprises a number of PCBs connected via a proprietary digital bus The majority of components are surface mounted and have low mass making this product suitable for use in environments experiencing moderate levels of vibration Please contact e2v technologies for more details and recommendations to make this product suitable for your application 6 2 1 Data path The Peltier cooled CCD is located on a headboard with an AFE which uses Correlated Double Sampling to acquire Pixel data The signal is then subject to clamping and passed to an ADC which converts the signal to a 12bit digital word After passing through a variable gain stage this 12bit word is passed over the Camera bus to the FPGA which accumulates Pixel data for a complete CCD line During each TV
7. celman a type of Coaxial connector Consultative Committee for International Radio Electronic Industries Alliance Automatic Level Control Liquid Crystal Display Flexible Image Transport System Audio Visual Interleave Random Access Memory Read Only Memory Printed Circuit Board Analogue Front End Analogue to Digital Converter Digital to Analogue Converter Field Programmable Gate Array Digital Signal Processor Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory Post Filter Gain Back Light Compensation Identity Signal to Noise Ratio Power Supply Unit Television Communications 19 8 Contacts e2v technologies 106 Waterhouse lane Chelmsford Essex CM1 2QU United Kingdom T 44 0 1245 493493 F 44 0 1245 492492 USA e2v technologies inc 4 Westchester Plaza Elmsford NY 10523 1482 T 1 914 592 6050 F 1 914 592 5148 France e2v technologies sas 16 Burospace F 91 572 Bievres Cedex T 33 0 1 6019 5500 F 33 0 1 6019 5529 Germany e2v technologies gmbh Industriestra e 29 82194 Gr benzell T 49 0 8142 410 57 22 F 49 0 8142 284 547 http l3vison e2v com enquiries e2v com
8. hancement 4 4 1 Temporal Filtering 4 4 2 Spatial Filtering This feature will normally be introduced automatically as illumination level is reduced In manual mode it may be selected by clicking on the Camera GUI Spatial filtering is best suited to static scenes since it tends to blur detail on edges This is not normally a problem at low light level since resolution will already be limited by the noise In this method the contents of the centre pixel in a block of 9 pixels is modified according to the content of adjacent pixels The table below indicates the relative contribution from each pixel sh Ea 24 fy MR This approximates the effect of a Gaussian filter Once again since the noise in each pixel is un correlated noise will be reduced 4 4 3 Extended Integration At very low light levels it may be advantageous to gather more photons on chip by extending the Integration interval The Camera Control GUI provides three different routes to achieve this It should be noted that this method is particularly susceptible to movement in the scene and is most effective when used with a static scene or when the Camera can be arranged to track the target by external means This feature may be selected at any time but it is recommended that it only be used when all other approaches have failed to produce a useful image E Backlight Compensation E Gamma E Spatial Filter HM Temporal Filter BM Post Filter Gain Extended In
9. inutes this indicates that the Camera cooling should be improved Attaching the base of the Camera to a large slab of metal or a heatsink will be helpful 4 2 Automatic Level Control The Camera is designed to operate with Automatic Level Control ALC and this should give optimum performance for the majority of applications When the Camera is fitted with an appropriate auto iris lens See section 3 3 the ALC will provide fully automatic operation 24 hours per day The following graph indicates how the Camera automatically selects gain and filter characteristics at different illumination levels The Camera GUI allows the user to select the attack and decay characteristic of the signal integrator used Auto Filter Algorithm to assess signal levels Post filter gain m Spatial Filter Temporal Filter Extend Integration SNR improvement dB Gain Expansion Scene Illumination Tunnel f 1 4 mL Camera Features 4 2 1 Peak Response Peak is the default response and this should always be preferred when operating with an auto iris lens in daylight in order to achieve loop stability However in some night scenes where the lens aperture is already fully open a bright light in part of the scene may cause detail in darker areas to be suppressed In this situation some benefit may be obtained by selecting the Average response 4 2 2 Average Response Average response may be selected
10. itted in the following 6 byte format 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 STX Command Data e Data ETX s Xor Checksum The USB interface deals with message acknowledgement automatically but when using the RS232 interface ACK NAK protocol will be used Upon receipt of a valid command the Camera will respond with an ACK character If a command is not recognised or the data value is out of range the Camera will respond with a NAK character Upon receipt of a NAK character the user shall re transmit the command Any command that requires data feedback will have the data returned in the data packet of the response in little endian format Command Set CCD Gain Set Camera Gain Set Gain Defeat Set Spatial Filter Set Temporal filter Set PFG Set Gamma Correction Set CCD Temp Set Regulation Save Settings Recall Settings Status Request Get CCD Temp Get Peltier Power Set Gain Mode Set BLC Set Extended Integration Set Ext Mode Set System ID 14 7 Glossary FCC EMC VCCI CCD EEA TEC LCP GUI USB PC BNC CCIR EIA ALC LCD FITS AVI RAM ROM PCB AFE ADC DAC FPGA DSP EEPROM PFG BLC ID SNR PSU TV COM Federal Communications Commission Electromagnetic Compatibility Voluntary Control Council for Interference Charge Coupled Device European Economic Area Thermo electric Cooler Liquid Crystal Polymer Graphical User Interface Universal Serial Bus Personal Computer Bayonet Neill Con
11. line blanking interval this new data is passed to the Digital Signal processor DSP and the DSP returns the previously processed line for output The output data is reduced to a 10bit word and passed to a Video DAC where TV syncs are added and the output passed via an anti alias filter to a conventional 75R BNC output In addition that data is also passed to the USB2 0 port for display and storage on a PC which has the e2v Camera Control GUI installed Appendices 6 2 2 Camera Timing All Camera timing functions are managed by the FPGA The FPGA is configured each time the Camera is turned on by transfer of data from the DSP The FPGA generates clock pulses for the Frame Transfer CCD and timing pulses to ensure that the CCD output is sampled at the correct time A crystal Master clock of nominally 60MHz is divided to allow very precise adjustment of timing to ensure the best performance from the Camera Individual Pixel data is sampled at a rate of nominally 15MHz 66 67ns pixel CCD Bias supplies are generated digitally and factory default values are loaded from EEPROM each time the Camera is switched ON 6 3 Auto iris Set up Procedure For guidance on setting up an Auto iris lens please refer to Low light Technical Note 3 found on the CD Command Value 6 4 Command Structure Users wishing to control the Camera from their own software should refer to the following Command Table Commands are transm
12. ll not operate if the CCD and Video gains are already at maximum limits 4 4 6 Gamma Correction Gamma correction will normally be set at 1 0 when using a TV monitor but some benefit may be obtained by setting it to 0 45 if the image is displayed on an LCD panel It may also sometimes be helpful to select a Gamma of 0 45 to bring out detail from the shadows in poorly exposed images 4 5 User Settings 4 5 2 Loading settings This feature allows the user to store current Camera settings for future In the user settings window click on the Name reference Up to six settings are available The settings are stored in dropdown arrow Select the required file and the Camera memory If the Camera is switched on with no connection click on Recall The Camera settings will update to a PC it will default to the last used setting 4 5 1 Saving settings 4 5 3 System Reference Establish the required Camera settings in the set gain set process and CCD temperature windows This feature allows the user to allocate a unique reference to each Camera in a multi Camera system Camera identity will be saved when Enter a file name max 8 characters in the user settings Name and recording images click on Save Camera Features 4 6 Recording Playback of images 4 7 Tape Transport Control Features 4 7 1 Recording Initiates Recording When this button is clicked the user is presented with a capture control window
13. mera Control GUI 3 5 Camera I O All these signals operate at TTL levels The Camera is supplied with a Type A USB connector and a 2m long A to A lead Analogue video in either CCIR 06 or EIA 05 format is available on The USB port may be used for Camera the BNC connector Output impedance is 75R The output circuit control and for transfer of Video to a PC includes an anti alias filter Failure to terminate the output with the requires USB2 0 correct impedance may result in image artefacts A Camera Features 4 1 Temperature Control The Camera has been designed to automatically maintain CCD temperature at a level defined by the user A peltier cooler within the CCD package removes heat to the base of the package from where it is conducted into the Camera base In order to obtain optimum performance at high ambient temperature and to minimise Camera power consumption it is recommended that the user provide an adequate path for removal of that waste heat to the environment This function will be assisted by the airflow provided through the Camera base CCD Temperature Feltier Power ll az a Actual Camera attached via USB The Camera GUI allows the user to choose CCD operating temperature from a drop down menu Default at power on is 5 C The Camera GUI also displays current Peltier Power If the bar is static at maximum and or Actual Temperature is higher than the Setpoint for several m
14. oning and Installation 3 3 Choosing a Lens The Camera includes a gain defeat feature that allows CCD gain to be temporarily inhibited whilst the auto iris lens level Control is set up To ensure optimum stability it is recommended that the lens is adjusted in accordance with the procedure defined in Appendix 6 3 The Camera is supplied with a Control GUI which can be located on the CD supplied with the Camera Place the CD in the PC CD ROM drive and follow installation instructions Note It is recommended that any other programmes are closed during installation After installation the GUI may be launched via the Icon installed on the PC Desktop The Camera Control GUI allows the user to adjust certain Camera parameters and if a USB2 0 connection is available will also allow display and storage of video sequences from the Camera When the GUI is launched the PC should present a window like the image below 3 3 1 Using an Auto iris lens When a Camera is connected the status bar at the bottom of the window indicates the type of interface currently detected e g USB1 1 USB2 0 or RS232 Otherwise it will report No Camera connected Camera Type and Serial No are also reported Camera features are described in the following sections of this document Commissioning and Installation A Camera Control GUI is supplied If this feature is required the 3 4 2 On Screen Display GUI must be installed on a PC running
15. tegrator ER External tigger O wiih O Edge E Backlight Compensation E Gamma MM Spatial Filter HM Temporal Filter E Post Filter Gain Extended Integration Normal rl 2 fields 4 fields h fields JE fields F fields 8 ald _ Camera Features 4 4 3 1 Internal This approach allows the user to adjust Integration interval between 1 and 15 Field periods i e between 20ms and 300ms for CCIR and between 16 67ms and 250ms for EIA The Camera includes a Field Store so the same image will be transmitted repeatedly until the next field has been captured This allows the feature to be used with a conventional TV monitor 4 4 3 2 External A e a 12805 0 B4us z64135us ng This feature allows the user to specify the STROBE_1_N Integration Interval by means of an external pulse with Integration interval defined by i RT pulse repetition rate 1 field 525 16 67ms 625 20ms FRAME SYNC GRAB fush siwe section LT rate i 1 i Taai ult t1 mero niege mage nt intagraw image ni Bop integration ud is mari integration ni stop integration o C mari inbegraban 111 trama transfer 1 trama transfer n Image Io sora image fo sibre 4 4 3 3 External B L GBB Camera Extended Integration Extemal B mode b zi 0 ug This feature allows the user to specify the a WE TQ oyy LTE Integration Interval by means of an external _
16. to enhance detail in dark parts of the scene CAUTION Selecting this feature may cause bright parts of the scene to be clipped 4 3 Manual Gain Control The Camera will normally operate in Automatic mode but some scenes o Hang may benefit from the application of Manual control When using this feature the user should be aware that it is always preferable to Ls introduce a small amount of CCD Gain before Camera Gain since this will CED ham EEE ensure that readout noise in the CCD has been adequately suppressed Camera Gain 1023 4 3 1 CCD Gain ALC G Peak Average Gain Defeat The Camera GUI allows the user to adjust CCD Gain in the range Min U Gain Defea Limit to Max Limit where limits are set during manufacture The GUI presents a 16 bit number that may be used for reference but it should be understood that this does not represent an absolute gain value It will usually be possible to adjust gain in the range x1 to x1000 If CCD Temperature is adjusted section 4 1 or the Camera temperature is raised or lowered so that the control circuit can no longer regulate CCD temperature the gain will vary Gain will decrease as CCD temperature is increased 4 3 2 Camera Gain The Camera GUI allows the user to adjust the Camera Gain in the range Min Limit to 471 where limit is set during manufacture A figure of 471 represents a gain of 12 and step sizes will always be consistent Camera Features 4 4 Image En
17. ts for use in United States Of America This device complies with part 15 of the FCC rules Operation is subject to the following two conditions 1 This device may not cause harmful interference and 2 This device must accept any interference received including interference that may cause undesired operation When used with a suitable class 2 ac dc power supply the L3C95 All Light Level Camera meets the requirements of ICES 003 for use within Canada The Camera meets the requirements of VCCI for interference by Information Technology Equipment ITE 2001 when used with a suitable class 2 ac dc power supply within Japan 3 Commissioning and Installation 3 1 General Recommendations 3 1 1 Operating Temperature Range The Camera is designed to operate with an external dc supply in the range 10 to 16 volts For operation of the Camera within the European Economic Area EEA Australia and New Zealand e2v technologies recommends that the Camera is powered via a class 1 power supply with a 12Vdc output The user should ensure that the secondary side of the class 1 power supply has the oVdc terminal connected to an electrical earth Connection to the Camera is made via an HR o connector see Wiring Details below For use within the United States Of America Canada and Japan e2v technologies recommends that the Camera is powered via a class 2 power supply with a 12Vdc output Connection to the Camera is made via an HR10
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