General Information (GigE Line Scan Cameras)#

This topic contains a rough overview about the main steps when setting up a GigE line scan camera for image acquisition.

Overview About Configuring Steps#

These are the main steps when setting up a line scan GigE camera:

• Hardware Installation (GigE Cameras)
• Software Installation:
  • Software Installation (Windows)
  • Software Installation (Linux)
• Network Configuration (GigE Cameras)
• Image Acquisition and Triggering:
  • Image Acquisition Timing Information
  • Electronic Shutter Types
  • Triggered Image Acquisition
• Feature settings:
  For information about the features that are available for a specific camera model and how to configure them, see the topics below the Features Overview topic. In the following, only special line scan features are listed separately:
  • A special line scan GigE feature is the Line Timeout feature.
    This feature is used to ensure that line scan GigE images are still transmitted to the host in the event of unexpected delays/stops (e.g., stops of the conveying device). This is useful if you want to send incomplete frames (partial frames), acquired until the timeout occurred, to the host computer.
  • Another line scan feature to configure is the Spatial Correction feature for line scan color cameras. This feature allows you to combine the color information of a line scan sensor where more than one pixel line is exposed simultaneously.

The Line Scan GigE Use Cases topic shows you typical use cases and special aspects that have to be taken into account when configuring GigE line scan cameras. The topic is intended to help you in developing an initial understanding of how triggers and parameters interact.

Combining Lines to Frames, Assigning Frames to an Object Image - Basics#

As with any other line scan camera, the sensor in a Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) camera is used to perform a series of line acquisitions as an object passes the camera. But unlike many other cameras, GigE line scan cameras work as follows:

• GigE cameras do not transmit the pixel data from each individual line to a host computer immediately after the line acquisition is complete.
• GigE cameras accumulate acquired lines in a buffer and assemble them into a "frame". When a determined number of lines have been accumulated to constitute a frame, the frame is transmitted via an Ethernet network to a host computer.
• The Height parameter of the image ROI specifies the height of the frame(s). The number of frames per object depends on the length of the object and on the maximum number of lines per frame. For information about the maximum number of lines per frame per Line scan GigE camera model, see the Image ROI topic.
• For GigE cameras, you can use the Counter and Data Chunks features, in combination with the trigger settings, to specify which lines belong to a frame and which frames belong to the correct test object. The combination of trigger, counter, and data chunks settings makes it possible to create a coherence between the frames recorded and the corresponding chunk data.