Telemark

University College
Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Cybernetics

NI Vision System
HANS-PETTER H ALVORSEN, 2 013.02.19

Faculty of Technology,

Postboks 203, Kjlnes ring 56, N-3901 Porsgrunn, Norway.

Tel: +47 35 57 50 00

Fax: +47 35 57 54 01

Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii
1 Hardware .......................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Software ........................................................................................................................................... 2
2.1.1 NI Vision Acquisition Software ........................................................................................... 2
2.1.2 Vision Development Module ............................................................................................. 2
2.1.3 Vision Builder for Automated Inspections ......................................................................... 3
3 Configuration .................................................................................................................................... 5
4 Using Vision in LabVIEW ................................................................................................................... 8
4.1.1 Using the Vision Acquisition Express VI ............................................................................. 8
4.1.2 Using the IMAQdx VIs ...................................................................................................... 10
4.1.3 Open Images from a File .................................................................................................. 12

ii

1 Hardware
The camera is a Basler scA640-70gc, which is a standard GigE Ethernet camera. The camera is
connected to the computer using a standard Ethernet cable.

Below we see the camera specifications for the Basler scA640-70gc model:

Included with the camera:

Power Supply
Ethernet cable, twisted-pair
C-mount lens (8 mm, F1.4 or 12mm, F.1.4)
Tripod mount

2 Software
You need the following software:

LabVIEW
NI Vision Acquisition Software
NI Vision Development Module
(NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection)

If you install all these packages, you will end up with the following palette in LabVIEW:

2.1.1 NI Vision Acquisition Software

The NI Vision Acquisition software is the basic software you need if you want to create Vision
applications for LabVIEW or the .NET platform. The NI Vision Acquisition software includes the
necessary drivers, such as NI-IMAQ and NI-IMAQdx.
The NI-IMAQdx driver software gives you the ability to acquire images with IEEE 1394 (FireWire),
GigE Vision (Ethernet), and USB cameras.

2.1.2 Vision Development Module

For more advanced machine vision and image processing you will need the Vision Development
Module. The Vision Development Module contains hundreds of image processing and machine vision
functions, both for LabVIEW and the .NET platform.
This package includes built-in functions for:

Pattern matching
Texture recognition
2

Software

Counting and Classification

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
Bar Code readers
Image Filters
etc.

Below we see the Image Processing palette in LabVIEW:

Below we see the Machine Vision palette in LabVIEW:

We will learn more about these later.

2.1.3 Vision Builder for Automated

Inspections
Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

Software

NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection (AI) is an external and independent application for
building and machine vision applications without the need for programming.

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

3 Configuration
When the necessary software is installed, we use the Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX)
to get started.
When we plug in the camera using an Ethernet cable into the computer, the camera should appear in
the list.
You can connect a camera to a local Windows machine or a LabVIEW Real-Time target machine. We
will focus on connection the camera to a local machine.
Complete the following steps to connect a GigE camera or an IEEE 1394 camera to a local Windows
machine:
1. Connect the camera to the Ethernet port on the local machine.
2. In the MAX configuration tree, expand Devices and Interfaces to obtain a list of installed
devices.
3. Expand NI-IMAQdx Devices to obtain a list of available cameras.

When the camera is successfully connected, you can configure and test the camera in MAX.
Click the camera name to select the appropriate camera (in this tutorial we use a Basler
scA640-70gc camera). Click Snap to acquire a single image or click Grab to continuously acquire an
image.
5

Configuration

If everything works, you should be able to see an image inside camera window:

Though you might get an error like this:

Which means you should reduce the Package Size in the configuration and/or configure the Firewall
on your computer.
When it comes to the Firewall, the easiest thing to do is to turn the whole Firewall off in order to
make sure the camera works.

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

Configuration

But it is not recommended to turn off the Firewall entirely and let the computer be unprotected for a
long time.
If still not working, you should also try to turn of the Anti Virus software temporary.

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

4 Using Vision in
LabVIEW
We start by demonstrating how to acquire images from the camera using LabVIEW code.

4.1.1 Using the Vision Acquisition

Express VI
The simplest way to acquire images from LabVIEW is to use the Vision Acquisition Express VI.
We find the Vision Acquisition Express VI in the Vision Express palette in LabVIEW:

When we drag the Vision Acquisition Express VI to the lock diagram, a wizard will appear:

Using Vision in LabVIEW

The finished LabVIEW program will simply look like this:

The image will be acquired on the Front Panel in the Image Out:

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

10

Using Vision in LabVIEW

4.1.2 Using the IMAQdx VIs

Below we see the NI-IMAQdx palette in LabVIEW:

Below we see a simple example where we use the IMAQdx VIs to create an application where we
acquire a single image from the camera.

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

11

Using Vision in LabVIEW

On the Front Panel we can use different containers for showing images on the screen:

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

12

Using Vision in LabVIEW

4.1.3 Open Images from a File

When working with Vision systems it is important to be able to save the images to a file or open an
existing image from a file.
Below we see an example of how we can open and load an image from a file into LabVIEW:

In the example above it will pop-up an open File dialog box, but we can also specify the file path
directly in the LabVIEW code.
On the Front panel we will see the image inside an image container:

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System

13

Using Vision in LabVIEW

Lab Equipment: NI Vision System





Telemark University College
Faculty of Technology
Kjlnes Ring 56
N-3918 Porsgrunn, Norway
[Link]


Hans-Petter Halvorsen, [Link].
Telemark University College
Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Cybernetics

Phone: +47 3557 5158
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
Blog: [Link]
Room: B-237a