Chapter 3 Hardware Overview
© National Instruments Corporation 3-3 IMAQPCI/PXI-1428 User Manual
LUTs
The IMAQ 1428 offers lookup tables (LUTs) that can perform operations
such as contrast enhancement, data inversion, gamma manipulation, or
other nonlinear transfer functions. The LUT fully supports any 8-bit to
16-bit base or medium configuration supported by the IMAQ 1428. Refer
to the Camera Link and IMAQ 1428 section for more information on
supported Camera Link configurations.
Multiple-Tap Data Formatter
Many digital cameras transfer multiple taps, or channels, of data
simultaneously to increase the frame rate of the camera. However, the data
in each tap may not be transferred in the traditional top-left to bottom-right
direction. Also, the taps may not transfer data in the same direction.
The multiple-tap data formatting circuitry on the IMAQ 1428 can
reordert he data from up to four taps. The data from each tap can
be independently scanned either from left-to-right or right-to-left and
top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top.
Note For your convenience, data reformatting instructions for these cameras have been
preprogrammed into the camera files.
SDRAM
The PXI-1428 has 32 MB of onboard high-speed synchronous dynamic
RAM (SDRAM). The PCI-1428 has 16 MB of SDRAM. The IMAQ 1428
uses the onboard RAM as a FIFO buffer to ensure a complete acquisition.
Even when the data rate from the camera exceeds PCI throughput, you can
acquire without interruption until the onboard RAM is full.
Trigger Control and Mapping Circuitry
The trigger control and mapping circuitry routes, monitors, and drives
the external and RTSI bus trigger lines. You can configure each line to start
an acquisition on a rising or falling edge and drive each line asserted or
unasserted, much like a digital I/O line. You also can map pulses from the
high-speed timing circuitry or many of the IMAQ 1428 status signals to
these trigger lines. Four external and four RTSI bus triggers (all of
which are programmable for polarity and direction) are available for
simultaneous use.