National Instruments PXI-1428 Introduction

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the IMAQ PCI/PXI-1428 image

acquisition device, the Camera Link standard, Camera Link and

IMAQ 1428 interfacing guidelines, and your software programming

choices.

The IMAQ 1428 is a highly flexible image acquisition (IMAQ) device that

supports a diverse range of Camera Link-compatible cameras from various

camera companies. The IMAQ 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 IMAQ 1428

is ideal for both industrial and scientific environments.

The IMAQ 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 IMAQ 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 IMAQ 1428 supports the Camera Link Base configuration. The

VHDCI 68-pin connector provides access to the 8-bit × 4 mode of the

Camera Link Medium configuration. For further configuration

information, refer to the Camera Link and IMAQ 1428 section of

Chapter3, H ardware 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.

For more advanced digital or analog system triggering or digital I/O lines,

you can use the IMAQ 1428 and NI-IMAQ with the National Instruments

data acquisition (DAQ) or motion control product lines.

Synchronizing several functions to a common trigger or timing event can

be a challenge with image acquisition devices. The IMAQ 1428 uses the

Real-Time System Integration (RTSI) bus to solve this problem.