© National Instruments Corporation 1-1 IMAQ PCI-1428 User Manual
1
Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of the PCI-1428 image acquisition
device, the Camera Link standard, Camera Link/PCI-1428 interfacing
guidelines, and your software programming choices.

About the IMAQ PCI-1428

The PCI-1428 is a highly flexible IMAQ device that supports a diverse
range of Camera Link-compatible cameras from various camera
companies. The PCI-1428 acquires digital images in real time and stores
the images in onboard frame memory or transfers them directly to system
memory. Featuring a high-speed data flow path, the PCI-1428 is ideal for
both industrial and scientific environments.
The PCI-1428 is easy to install and configure. It ships with NI-IMAQ, the
National Instruments complete IMAQ driver software you can use to
directly control the PCI-1428 and other National Instruments IMAQ
hardware products. With NI-IMAQ, you can quickly and easily start your
applications without having to program the device at the register level.
The PCI-1428 supports the Camera Link Base configuration, and the
VHDCI 68-pin connector provides access to the 8-bit × 4 mode of the
Camera Link Medium configuration. For further configuration
information, see the Camera Link and PCI-1428 section in Chapter3,
Hardware Overview.
The VHDCI 68-pin connector has four external input/output (I/O) lines you
can use as triggers or as high-speed digital I/O lines.
Note To use the trigger lines as digital I/O lines, go to the LabVIEW palette, and select
Motion & Vision»Image Acquisition»Signal I/O V Is.
For more advanced digital or analog system triggering or digital I/O lines,
you can use the PCI-1428 and NI-IMAQ with the National Instruments data
acquisition (DAQ) or motion control product lines.