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Files out convertor

Camera  Manual

United Films USB 2.0 Buffer camera is designed for machine vision film scanning applications, With high speed USB

2.0 interface and powerful PC camera engine, the camera delivers image data at high frame rate. GUI demonstration

application and SDK are provided for user’s application developments.

PC Requirement

United Films USB Camera is using USB 2.0 for data collection, USB 2.0 hardware MUST be present on user’s

PC and United Films device driver MUST be installed properly before using United Films demonstration application OR

developing application with United Films SDK.

The minimum requirements for PC are:

Processor: Pentium III, 900M

OS: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista

RAM: 256M (512M or greater recommended)

Hard Disk Space: 40M for software installation.

USB 2.0 Host Controller: Present.

As the camera draws ~360mA from USB port, user should use AC powered PC and self powered USB Hub (if

connected) to connect with the camera.

Camera Modules:

Please refer to the following table for camera modules and their main features:

Module Max

Resolution

Color/Mono Shutter Exposure

Time (ms)

Bit Enclosure GPIO Buffer **

(frames)

Trigger In

/Strobe out

*. “-U” modules are with C mount interface, while “-US” modules are with CS mount interface.

**. Buffer means the camera built-in frame buffer, the value shown is frame buffer under maximum resolution at

8 pin Din connector as following:

(The following figure is the receptacle of the 8pin connector on the camera module)

Caution: For user wants to use those pins, user must be very careful not to shorten two different signals . Doing so may

damage the camera, in worst case, even the PC itself.

Note:

1). Trigger_In : External trigger signals are mainly used while the camera is set in TRIGGER mode,

(however, in NORMAL mode, each frame has a related flag to show whether trigger signal occurred

during this frame). The Trigger_In is a LVTTL signal (relative to Pin2, GND), it’s pulled up with a

10Kohm resistor on camera, a falling edge on it asserts a valid trigger signal. In most cases, an external

circuit will generate the trigger signal, user has to be careful that a noise filter might be needed to get rid of

any noise glitches on this signal. Note that on current design, the trigger delay is less than 250us, however,

please note that the frame is ready after it’s exposed (the “Exposure time” elapsed).

2). Strobe_Out: This is a signal from camera, For ERS (Electrical Rolling Shutter)

in TRIGGER mode, a strobe signal (positive pulse) might be helpful while the

last Row of the sensor starts to exposure, (Assume exposure time is long enough, this is also the moment

that all the rows are in exposure state), user might use it for triggering external lightings. It’s a LVTTL

positive pulse. For GS (Global Shutter) cameras a positive pulse synchronized

with the exposure period.

3). GPIO: 4 GPIO pins are provided, each GPIO pin provides LVTTL level and 8mA source/sink current while it’s

configured as output, it can also be configured as Input pin.

Pin1 : NC

Pin2 : GND

Pin3 : Trigger_In

Pin4: GPIO1

Pin5 : Strobe_Out

Pin6: GPIO2

Pin7: GPIO3

Pin8: GPIO4

Sowtware

The main window has two Tabs, the “Global Controls” Tab has all the controls which are effective to all

the cameras, while the “Camera Controls” Tab has controls which is only effective to the current camera.

Note: For setting proper exposure for an image, “Exposure Time” setting is prior to “Gain” setting, as high gain will increase image noises, it’s recommended to set Gain not more than 32(4x) in most applications.

current camera.

: Start/Stop Frame Grabbing. : Show Video window.

: Show factory panel. : Show GPIO panel. : Show Device select panel.

(This panel allow user to re-select the cameras in working set).

Mode selection for current camera

Resolution and 1:2 decimation selection for current camera, user might use

Button to define customized row and column size. (4 as minimum in non-decimation

mode, and 8 as minimum in 1:2 decimation mode). For B050/C050 Camera, it has 1:4

and “Bin Mode” selections, allow user to set 1:4 decimation mode, and if the decimation

is “Skip” or “Bin”.

Exposure Time for current camera.

When “Auto Exposure Enable” is checked, the current camera will be automatically

controlled by the camera engine for optimized exposure time according to the exposure

detection of a small rectangle area in the center of the image, this small rectangle area

can be shown while the “ShowAEMark “ is checked (in “Global Controls” Tab).

X,Y and Gain Control of current camera, Note that (X,Y) control is only effective while

the resolution is NOT set to maximum (e.g. 1280x1024 for 1.3M camera), while the

resolution is set to a sub-region of the sensor, X,Y slide bar allows user to move the

region (ROI) on the sensor.

For Color Cameras, there’re Red, Green and Blue Gains which can be controlled in 1 –

64 range (0.25x –8x). For Mono camera, only Green Gain is present, and it’s the Gains to

all the pixels on Mono sensor. Note that set high gain will increase the camera noise, for

most applications, it’re recommended not to set gain more than 32 (4x)..

Auto White Balance” feature, while doing this, please make sure the

focus, exposure time are properly set and user can put a WHITE paper on the focus

object…and then click this button. Camera engine will figure out proper R, G, B gains to

make the “White paper” looks white. Note that it’s only effective for color camera.

: it’s used to increase/decrease the RGB gains in proportional steps.

User might use the button to save frames to files, here, user might select the

directory, filename, frame number, and also has the following controls:

“

Ignore 1:2 decimation” : If it’s checked, the saved frame is always in “Nondecimation”

way, even the resolution for current camera is in 1:2 decimation.

“Save As JPEG File” : The file saved is in JPEG format, otherwise is in BMP format.

Note that here we assume the “Grab Frame Type” in “Global Controls” is set as

“Bitmap Image”, if it’s “Raw Data”, these two checkboxes are disabled, as the saved file

is always in RAW data format under the current resolution/decimation setting.

“Append Date_Time”: When it’s checked, a string of “YYMMDD_HHMMSS” is attached

to the File Name for each frame file.

These two buttons are used for user to save/load the settings (of current camera)

to/from a “.set” file. User might save all the current settings (e.g. after “Auto White

Balance”) to a file…and later load it from the file.

The status bar here show how many cameras in working set, and whether the

current camera engine is selected as 8 or 10 bits. It also shows which camera is selected

as “current” camera, note that all the camera settings in “Camera Controls” tab is

“local” to this camera only, while user selects another camera, all these settings are

switched to the settings of the new camera.

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There’s a video window for each camera in working set, user can use the “Show Current Camera Image

Only” to control showing of the current camera’s video window only OR showing of all video windows. One example

is as following (in this case, there’re two cameras in working set, and their video windows are all shown):

Frame Data Format for all cameras. While it’s set as “Bitmap Image”, the

image data from camera engine (and thus shown on video window and

might be saved to files) are always 8bit no matter the camera bit selection is

8 or 10 bit. While it’s set as “Raw Data”, there’s no video will be shown on

video window, however, the data saved to file will be according to the

camera bit selection, it might be 8 or 10 raw data.

Set the show style of the video window, while “Same As Capture

Resolution” show the image in 1:1 style, the “Always Fit Render

Window” will stretch the image to fit the current video window size. (This

needs much more PC resources, and thus will affect the final frame rate).

“Show Current Camera Image Only”: while it’s checked, only the

current camera’s video window will be shown, otherwise, all the video

windows (one for each camera) will be shown.

“ShowAEMark” : This is for controlling of appearance of the “Automatic

Exposure Control” detection area mark.

Global Gamma, Contrast and Brightness control for BMP image of all

cameras. These parameters are used in camera engine while converting the

Raw image data to bitmap image.

Global control for images display attributes for all camera.

These are two special features for frame grabbing, when the “Grab Files

From all attached cameras” is checked, the application will take the “Frame

Grabbing” ( click of button of the current camera) as global action, that

is, clicking this button for current camera will be equivalent to clicking this

button for each camera (one by one) in working set. Before doing that, user

might need to set proper File grabbing parameters for each camera in its

own “Camera Controls” tab.

“Trigger To Grab Frames in Video Mode” is used in CONTINUOUS mode

only, while it’s checked, a trigger signal on the current camera is the

equivalent to the click of button.

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The title of the video window has the following format:

Camera No Resolution (Bin Mode) (X,Y) ExposureTime (Rgain, Ggain, Bgain) TimeStamp FrameRate.

An example from above is:

There are some other windows as following:

Camera No Resolution Xstart Exposure Gains (R,G,B) TimeStamp (in ms) Frame Rate

“[]” on the (1:1) or (1:2) Ystart Time(in us)

No. means means Non-Bin

It’s the current OR Bin mode.

Selected Camera

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The button is for operation of GPIO of the current camera.

On this dialog, user can configure the 4 pins as Output or Input, for output pins, check the “Outx” box will

set the pin to HIGH. For input pins, the “Inx” check box is checked while the input is HIGH.

The button allow user to re-select cameras in working set, note that while doing this, the application

will stop the camera engine first….and then allow user to select cameras, the device selection window will

show again (this window shows up while starting the application) and user can check the camera if he wants to add it in working set, otherwise, leave it unchecked.

Note that this is similar to re-start of the application.

The button is used for show the factory control dialog, user might use it for firmware version query

and firmware upgrade.

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For DSP firmware upgrading, user should go this dialog, and then use

to select the new firmware (*.ldr file), And user can click

button to start the downloading.

After downloading is successfully, user should power cycle the camera (simply plug Out/In the camera

from the USB port), this will activate the new DSP firmware.

Click to button will get firmware version information

from camera.

User can upgrade DSP firmware with those controls, for

details, please refer to the following descriptions.