Blackfly camera environment setup

Camera

Hardware list

• BlackFly S BFS-U3-04S2C camera
• Ricoh FL-CC0614A-2M lens
• FLIR tripod adapter for BFS series cameras (30 mm)
• FLIR cable, USB 3.1 Type-A to micro-B (Locking), 5m length
• FLIR GPIO cable with 6-pin Hirose HR10 connector, 6-pin, 4.5m length
• K&F Concept tripod

Camera setup

1. Screw the tripod adapter to the bottom of the camera
2. Detach the removable tray from the tripod
3. Screw the camera to the tray
4. Reattach the tray to the tripod
5. Unscrew the camera lens cover
6. Remove the lens inlet cover
7. Screw the lens to the camera
8. Connect the USB cable to back of camera and to a PC

Spinnaker SDK

Downloading the SDK

1. Go to the download page of the SpinnakerSDK
2. Click the Download button. You’ll be asked to provide an email address. If the later is already linked with a Flir account you then just have to type your password
3. Once you are logged in, specicify your country and state/territory before clicking on Download Now
4. Select the version of the SDK you want to download according to your OS and hardware architecture. To use the PySpin python wrapper, download the Python version
5. Follow the installation instructions

PySpin setup

PySpin is the python wrapper for Spinnaker SDK. It

Requirements

• Python <= 3.10
• numpy <= 1.26.4
• opencv-python

Enviroment setup

1. Create a virtual environment
2. Make sure not to install numpy 2.0 (available since June 2024)
3. Install the PySpin directly form the wheel provided in the downloaded zip archive

Camera parameters

Interacting with the camera

Once Spinnaker SDK is installed, one can use the Spinview software to access the camera. The default parameters allow the camera to record ar 200 fps. Setting White balance auto and Exposure auto parameters to off allow to reach an acquisition framerate of 437fps. If in addition, the ADC bit depth to 8, the acquisition framerate goes up to 522fps. However, it has a strong impact on the quality of the image.