LVmPC^®

Leutron Vision's micro-PC for embedded vision applications.

LVmPC^® series is a modular micro-PC with a small footprint of 91×92×182mm, suitable for medical, security and industrial machine vision applications. This PC family combines innovative notebook technology with modern frame grabber technology in a very small form factor. For vision applications, the popular operating systems Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Linux and VxWorks are available. LVmPC is successor of our well-known PentiCam^® series.

LVmPC^® main highlights:

• intel ultra low power Pentium III and Celeron versions
• 10/100 Mb Ethernet, IEEE1394a (FireWire), USB, VGA, COM1/2, Keyboard, Mouse, IDE-Harddisk and CompactFlash
• Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Linux, VxWorks supported
• analog, digital, IEEE1394a and Camera Link frame grabbers available
• extensive choice of standard and non-standard cameras
• PC-Card interface available for add-on custom functionality
• remote boot from LAN

Architecture

The LVmPC series represents a modular PC system based on notebook PentiumIII or Celeron CPU technology combined with a large choice of frame grabbers. With these frame grabbers, the LVmPC system offers image acquisition for standard and non-standard cameras with analog or digital interfaces, providing powerful processing capabilities. The user can utilise popular PC interfaces like 10/100 Mb Ethernet, IEEE1394a, USB, VGA, Mouse, Keyboard and COM1. The LVmPC series can be equiped with up to four Leutron Vision PMC modules such as PicPort^® or PicProdigy^® frame grabbers. OEMs may integrate third party PMC modules. An integrated DC/DC-Converter ensures that the external power requirement is reduced to a single voltage source of 12 or 24 volt. To interface to external events, all PicPort^® and PicProdigy^® frame grabbers are equiped with 8 opto-isolated digital inputs and outputs capable of 5 to 24 volt signaling. An optional PC-Card interface enables the use of standard PCMCIA I/II cards like CANbus and Profibus, or for remote control and Modem or wireless LAN. The internal storage medium can be selected from standard notebook 2.5" harddisk, IBM Microdrive or Compact Flash memory. For OS boot or external transfer medium, USB floppy drives, USB-CD drives or IDE-Devices can be used over an externally accessible IDE Interface.

With the LVmPC series, the embedded target and development system are one and the same - just connect the keyboard, mouse and monitor and start work. Not only does your development work get easier, but easy maintenance and field upgrades are additional benefits.

Clients who already use Leutron frame grabbers can take advantage of software compatibility with these standard PCI grabbers and port their application to LVmPC very easily.

The LVmPC series is available in different flexible configurations. The standard system is the PC and comes with one frame grabber without camera. (The cabinet size of this version is 91×92×182 mm).

MainBoard

The LVmPC series is based on standard notebook components with the following specifications:

• MainBoard based on Intel 815E standard-chipset.
• Processor choice of Intel PIII 933 MHz with 512K cache or Celeron 650 MHz with 256K Cache, using advanced 0.13 micron process technology. As Ultra Low Power Processors, the power consumption and therefore the heat dissipation is extremely low. They belong to the Intel Embedded Roadmap and are long-term available. An OEM version with a 478-pin socket enables the use of other Low-Cost / High performance CPU's.
• 64-bit 512 MB SDRAM as a single SO-DIMM, 144 Pin, 68 mm×2.7 mm.
• Integrated 3D graphics controller chipset with up to 1280×1024×24-bit resolution with DVI-I connector for standard digital TFT monitors, as well over an adapter plug for standard analog monitors.
• 2 × USB type A (for OEMs there is an option of 2 additional USB type A), COM1, COM2 (internal), PS/2-keyboard, PS/2-Mouse, IDE, all with standard connectors accessible from outside the cabinet.
• 10/100 Mb Ethernet Controller.
• IEEE1394 FireWire Interface for Digital cameras etc. (for OEMs there is an option of 1 additional IEEE1394a FireWire Interface).
• Up to 4 PMC slots for PicPort^® or PicProdigy^® frame grabbers and other I/O modules from Leutron Vision (OEMs may integrate a third party PMC module supporting 3.3V PCIbus).
• State of the art standard BIOS, 100% compatibly with PC-Standard.
• Boot from USB device or remote boot from LAN.
• 2.5" IDE hard-disk with mounting size of 9.5 mm thick.
• 2 slots for Compact Flash Type I/II (50 Pin ATA-Interface) enable the use of up to 2 GB of resident flash memory (as a replacement for the hard-disk).
• DC/DC converters enable the use of a single 12 or 24 VDC power supply.

Frame Grabber Modules

To connect cameras for medical, security and industrial machine vision applications, LVmPC offers different PMC frame grabber modules as well as a IEEE1394a interface on the motherboard. Supported are analog standard cameras (CCIR, RS170) and non-standard video sources (high-resolution, high-speed, dual tap, etc) as well digital interfaces (CameraLink, RS-422, RS-644, IEEE1394a, etc). These frame grabbers offer many possible configurations for almost all image acquisition needs like simultaneous acquisition from several cameras, image processing and bayer pattern decoding in realtime, or random reset control of cameras. Image data is transferred by DMA over the PCIbus direct into the CPU memory and/or into the graphics card memory. A hardware state-machine on each frame grabber guarantees the performance of realtime critical functions independent of the operating system.

PicPort-Color-PMC

• 3 CVBS + 1 S-Video input or 4 CVBS-Inputs
• PAL, NTSC, CCIR and RS170 video
• Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Saturation programmable
• Color conversion to RGB, YUV or monochrome with different pixel depths
• Down scalable in horizontal and/or vertical direction
• Synchronous acquisition trigger

IEEE1394a

• Integrated on the motherboard of LVmPC series
• 400Mb data rate
• Optional for OEM second interface

PicPort-Mono-PMC

• 4 analog video inputs
• CCIR, RS170 and non-standard video timing
• Resolution up to 2048 × 2048 pixels programmable
• Up to 20 MHz @ 8-bit acquisition rate
• 256 × 8-bit Look-Up-Table
• Asynchronous acquisition trigger
• Down scalable in horizontal and/or vertical directions

PicPort-Stereo-PMC

• Same as PicPort-Mono
• Additional second input channel for stereo acquisition from 2 synchronized cameras or 1 dual-channel camera

PicPort-Digital-PMC

• 2 Video inputs with 8-bit/40 MHz or 1 Video input with 16-bit/20 MHz
• RS-422, RS-644 and RS-644-TTL
• Resolution up to 2048 × 2048 Pixels programmable
• Asynchronous acquisition trigger
• Down scalable in horizontal and/or vertical directions

PicPort-Pro-CameraLink-PMC

• 1 Base connector
• Hirose 6-pin connector for camera power
• 32MB high speed DDR-SDRAM
• Multi-tap cameras supported
• 16 DMA channels for PCIbus
• Bayer-Pattern decoder hardware function
• Resolution up to 64k × 64k for area scan and 64k × infinity for line scan cameras
• Input frequency up to 85 MHz

Common features of all frame grabber modules

• Over 500 editable camera definitions in Camera Editor available
• 8 trigger in/out (opto coupler) with input voltage range from 5 to 24 volt
• 12 V power output for cameras with resetable fuses.
• At least two DMA channels
• Horizontal and/or vertical mirroring
• Hardware Overlay
• Acquisition trigger
• Drivers for Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Linux and VxWorks
• 3rd-Party-Software: HALCON, ActiveTools, Neurocheck, Common Vision Blox.

For further details about Leutron Vision's extensive range of frame grabber boards, please consult the pages of the PicPort^® and PicProdigy^® (listed in the product catalog), which are compatible with LVmPC.

For information about applications using external devices such as trigger and flash, please refer to application note «External trigger and flash».

Expansion Options

An optional PC-Card interface enables the use of standard PCMCIA I/II cards like CANbus, Profibus or for remote control using Modem or wireless LAN. In addition to the PC-Card interface there is an OEM option to integrate third party PMC boards. In this way, existing drivers for a standard PCI computer can be re-used.

Software

Operating systems

As LVmPC is 100% compatible with standard PC technology, all popular OS's can be used. We support Windows 9x/NT4/2000/XP/embedded-NT, Linux and VxWorks ensuring full user compatibility with existing appplications.

LV-SDS

Leutron Vision Software Development Suite, LV-SDS, is a software development package (Windows, Linux & VxWorks) that allows full control of all PicPort^® and PicProdigy^® products and contains extensive libraries and software tools.

The suite consists of Daisy - the basic software interface for PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® cards, Camera Editor - easy interactive setup of standard and non-standard cameras, DRAL - a library for handling specific time-critical tasks, and Orchid - high level library (DLL or OCX) for quick and easy design of PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® applications. The camera editor comes with more then 500 definition sets for the most popular cameras on the market. TWAIN Driver and Video for Windows - provide a simple interface between Leutron Vision hardware and other office and image manipulation programs (e.g. MS Office, CorelDRAW, etc.).

Demo programs and example source code

The software products come complete with a set of demo programs and additional examples with source code as a guide to the programmer in developing particular applications. To obtain more information, please download the LV-SDS manual.

3rd party software

Several well-known third party packages for real-time image processing and analysis are also supported. The packages include HALCON, Activ Vision Tools, NeuroCheck, and others. Please refer to our detailed software brochure (PDF) for more details.

Technical Specifications

Note: please refer also to the LVmPC^® manual providing full-detailed, up-to-date information about LVmPC and all its components.

Complementary and Related Products

Supporting software

Comprehensive set of software tools consisting of video capture libraries and image processing libraries for Windows XP/2000/NT4, Windows Me/98/95 and for Linux. Please check especially the following ones:

Daisy

Video capture library of LV-SDS (Software Development Suite). Object oriented library of functions controlling all features of PicPort^® and PicProdigy^® boards.

Camera editor

An easy-to-use application enabling user to connect one of many predefined video sources or specify another, even nonstandard one.

DRAL

Extension libraries for Daisy providing real-time functionality of PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® frame grabbers.

Orchid

High level library for developing interactive applications with a few lines of code in visual tools like Microsoft Visual Basic, Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder, etc. Available as a DLL or as an OCX component.

Available Frame Grabbers

All Leutron frame grabber series are also available in versions suitable for LVmPC system:

PicPort^®-Pro-CL for LVmPC^®

Frame grabber with Camera Link digital interface.

PicPort^®-Mono/Stereo for LVmPC^®

Analog frame grabbers for standard and non-standard monochrome cameras. Stereo models allow simultaneous acquisition from two cameras.

PicPort^®-Color for LVmPC^®

Analog frame grabber for standard (PAL/NTSC/SECAM) video sources.

PicPort^®-Digital for LVmPC^®

Frame grabber with LVDS (RS422/RS644) digital interface.

Ordering Information

Because LVmPC comes in huge number of different configurations, the relevant ordering information is quite extensive and likely to be updated more frequently than for other products. Thus we do not list all the ordering numbers directly on this page. Please contact Leutron Vision or refer directly to the pricelist to get the complete list of options.