IDS camera interface

Drivers installation

Go to IDS cameras website and browse to uEye industrial cameras => Interface:USB3 , Family:XLE Rev.1.1 , Model:U3-3680XLE-C-HQ Rev.1.1 or so, => Show.

On software section, choose your operative system and download the IDS peak 2.5.1 suite. It contains de drivers and the API. You must be registered in the website, but it is free and easy.

Once downloaded, install the suite and reboot the computer.

Install the IDS-cameras API

We must install the python wheels via pip. Locate the wheels files. They should be somewhere like C:\Program Files\IDS\ids_peak\generic_sdk. There should be at least three directories: afl, api, ipl.

Open a terminal and move to this directory

cd C:\Program Files\IDS\ids_peak\generic_sdk

Now, check your python version with python. Also, check the bitness (32 or 64).

Note: If you want to use this API in the LabView environ, then you have to install it in the system python (not in a conda python).

The first wheel to install is api. In the terminal, type

pip install api/binding/python/wheel/x86_64/ids_peak-1.5.0.0-cpXX-cpXX-win_amd64.whl

Notice that cpXX have to be replaced with your python version (e.g. cp37 for python 3.7).

Then, install the afl and the ipl wheel with a similar command.

You can check that the installation was successful by typing pip list and looking for the ids-peak package or by checking that import ids_peak do not give any error in a python console.

Install and test this IDS-cameras python interface

Clone this repository where you want

cd $HOME  # or werever you want
git clone https://github.com/WavefrontEngUB/IDS_camera_interface.git
cd IDS_camera_interface

the code test_camera.py is a simple example of how to use the API. You can run it with

python test_camera.py

If everything is ok, you should see a window with the camera image and the camera parameters printed in the terminal.

IDS cameras python interface

Easy example for just one camera

 from interface import IDSinterface

 my_interface = IDSinterface()
 my_interface.set_pixel_format(bit_rate=12, colorness="RGB")  # RGB12 (optional)
 my_interface.select_and_start_device()  # Select the first device found and start acquisition
 my_interface.set_fps(1000)  # Set the fps to 1000 (optional)
 my_interface.set_exposure_time(1000*50)  # Set the exposure time to 50 ms (optional)
 my_interface.set_gain()  # Set the gain to 1 (optional)
 image = my_interface.capture()  # Capture an image as a numpy array
 my_interface.stop()  # Stop the acquisition
 del my_interface  # Close the interface and release the camera

If more than one camera is wired, every method has an optional argument idx to select the camera to manage.

  my_interface = IDSinterface()
  # Exploring available devices
  all_devices = my_interface.get_devices()
  print(f"\nFound {len(all_devices)} devices:")
  for idx, device in enumerate(all_devices):
      print(f" > {idx} : {device.ModelName()}")

  # Output:
  $ Found 2 devices:
  $  > 0 : U3-368xXLE-M
  $  > 1 : U3-368xXLE-C

  my_interface.select_and_start_device(idx=0)  # Select the first device found and start acquisition
  my_interface.select_and_start_device(idx=1)  # Select the second device found and start acquisition
  my_interface.set_pixel_format(bit_rate=8, idx=0)  # Seting 8 bit pixel format for the first camera
  my_interface.set_exposure(1000*50, idx=1)  # Set the exposure time to 50 ms to the second camera
  image0 = my_interface.capture(idx=0)  # Capture an image from the first camera
  image1 = my_interface.capture(idx=1)  # Capture an image from the second camera

IDS cameras LabView interface

blablabla

Requeriments

numpy matplotlib imageio

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Disclaimer

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; check the License.txt for more details.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Check also the LICENSE file.

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