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Image Acquisition
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FALCON supports all current monochrome and color cameras with composite and Y/C video output. These are high precision digitized (perfectly suitable for industrial measurement applications) and transferred into the PC. The maximum resolution is 768 x 576 pixels. The driver also supports independent switch-over to all video channels in desired order. With FALCON the switch-over speed among the input channels has been enhanced by the modification of the video input. With cameras of different brightness levels inter-fering transient reactions are eliminated.
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Multiple Board Operation
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Several applications (as example security and monitoring applicatons) are dependent on the collaboration of several frame grabber cards in a single PC. Up to 4 independent cards can be worked in a PC. Thus within a single PC you can get up to 8 video input channels with a selection of 2 cameras at the same time. The coin of image presentation, image size and other parameters can be independently programmed for each input. Thus expensive video multiplexers and quadrant splits can be saved. Digital video images can be stored as object display or image sequence (Video for Windows with software codec) and transferred via LAN or ISDN.
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Settings
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FALCON allows various regulations of the digital image data like changing the image size, the image section, the contrast, the brightness, the color saturation and many more so that critical video sources can be grabbed. The FALCON has a special mode which compensates for critical synchronization behavior and allows images to be grabbed in a higher quality.
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Image Displaying
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Displaying the digitized video data is always done on the VGA screen of the PC. The images are transmitted via the PCI bus in video real time, without almost any CPU-load. They are then presented as a live image on the VGA monitor. Precondition is the installation of the DirectDraw driver. It is contained in the scope of delivery in well known VGA card ranges.
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Overlay
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A commonly used function is overlaying of an image with text and graphics without disrupting the live image. DD (DirectDraw) and the modes DD-Backbuffer and DD-overlay surface are included in our frame grabber library and thus offer this possibility. The CPU-load is less than 10%. The DD-Backbuffer mode is suitable for all graphic cards, yet with the DD Overlay Surface mode only cards supporting this mode are suitable.
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Direct Draw - Advantages
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DirectDraw is a Microsoft specified interface for the presentation of video data with Windows. Until recently frame grabber cards without individual image memory had two presentation possibilities:
1. Direct transmission into the VGA card Advantage: Real live image with almost no CPU-load.
Disadvantage: Image data overwrote all informations on the screen. The video image would always being in the foreground.
2. Indirect image presentation via the PC system Advantage: Windows controls the image presentation. Overlay to the video image is possible.
Disadvantage: Usually no real live image and CPU is working up to 100% towards image presentation. DirectDraw combines the advantages of both varieties. Real live image with the possibility of overlaying the video image with dialogues, text and graphics.
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Supported Color Formats with Image Displaying
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FALCON supports a number of color modes for the storage and displaying of images. Depending on the modes various amounts of data have to be trans-mitted via the PCI bus. This results in the PCI-bus-load being dependent on the selected color modes. Color formats with FALCON can be chosen from: RGB 32, RGB24, RGB 16, RGB15, Y8 (grey scale), YUV 4:2:2
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Software Development Kit (SDK)
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A comprehensive SDK makes FALCON be of unspoken power. Only with this we make the utilization of all hardware performance features possible. A great number of functions for flexible image display and memory management is offered to the user. Image sequences are provided with a ring buffer or a list with interlocked image buffers. All display modes of Windows are supported today. For the demonstration of effectiveness of the driver a demo program comes with the product. The Microsoft Visiual C/C++ written source code of this application shows the programming of the card and helps solving the tasks.
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Order Information
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- IS-FALCON
- IS-TWAIN
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Scope of Delivery
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- PC-Plug-in board
- Driver für Windows95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP
- CINCH to BNC-Adapter
- Documentation
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Block Diagram
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Software
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with source code free of charge included in the scope of supply
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SDK Functions
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- Initializing and Termination
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Setup and termination of connection to hardware
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- Image Digitization and Memory Management
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Allocation of memory, handling of several image memories,...
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- Double and Multi Buffering
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Setup of a memory sequence, ring buffering
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- Selection of Operation Modes and
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Readback of Adjustments
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Setup, reset and adjustment of all FALCON parameters
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- Reading and Writing the EEPROM
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- Storage and Loading of Images
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- Image Displaying
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- Additional DirectDraw Functions
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Overlay on/off, displaying the overlay, DD backbuffer mode, DD primary surface mode, DD overlay surface mode
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- Event Handling (Interrupt Controlled Image Digitizing)
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