Allied Vision Camera

This service controls an Allied Vision camera. It is a wrapper around the Vimba SDK, which requires its installation. The service uses the Python API for Vimba X SDK, called VmbPy. In order to be able to run this service, the camera needs to be set up with the right Allied Vision USB driver. If the device is also controlled through other interfaces, for example NI MAX, you need to switch back to the right driver through that interface.

Vimba X SDK: https://www.alliedvision.com/en/products/software/ VmbPy Python API: https://github.com/alliedvision/VmbPy

Note

The current catkit2 environment file installs the legacy VimbaPython package instead of the required VmbPy package. This is because the VmbPy package is not available on any conda channel or PyPI. To install the VmbPy package, you need to install it from source as described under the link above.

The service has been successfully tested with the following camera models:

• Alvium 1800 U-158m

• Alvium 1800 U-500m

Configuration

camera1:
  service_type: allied_vision_camera
  simulated_service_type: camera_sim
  requires_safety: false

  camera_id: "DEV_1AB22C011222"
  device_name: AV Alvium 1800 U-158m

  offset_x: 0
  offset_y: 0
  width: 32
  height: 32
  sensor_width: 1456
  sensor_height: 1088

  exposure_time: 200
  gain: 0

Properties

exposure_time: Exposure time of the camera in microseconds.

gain: Gain of the camera.

brightness: Brightness of the camera.

width: The width of the camera frames.

height: The height of the camera frames.

offset_x: The x offset of the camera frames on the sensor.

offset_y: The y offset of the camera frames on the sensor.

sensor_width: The width of the sensor.

sensor_height: The height of the sensor.

Commands

start_acquisition(): This starts the acquisition of images from the camera.

end_acquisition(): This ends the acquisition of images from the camera.

Datastreams

temperature: The temperature (in Celsius) as measured by the camera.

images: The images acquired by the camera.

is_acquiring: Whether the camera is currently acquiring images.