Orchid Library

The Orchid is a library enabling easy development of applications for PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® frame grabbers. It can be used in various programming environments, like Microsoft Visual Basic, Borland Delphi, Borland C++ Builder. The library acts as a high-level interface above the base API of LV-SDS, with some more functionality added (displaying, saving to files etc.).

The Orchid interface is designed to be easy to use, i.e. it is strongly simplified in comparison to base LV-SDS API. Thus it cannot cover all the possibilities offered by LV-SDS API. However, it covers most common tasks and the application development with Orchid is usually much faster than with base LV-SDS API.

The Orchid library is available in 2 forms: as an ActiveX (OCX) component and as a standard DLL, with the same functionality.

Introduction

Orchid is a library implementing a higher level interface between the Daisy library and the application. It covers the most used functionality provided by Daisy, with stress put on the simplicity of usage. Simple, but functional application using PicPort^® or PicProdigy^® may not need more than a few lines of code (typically it is enough to set the grabber, camera and connector names plus the display window handle and then the Live method can already be called to display live image on screen).

Orchid covers both the standard PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® acquisition mode and the real-time modes (based on DRAL modules). Thus it can be used not only for development of interactive user programs, but also for machine vision applications.

Besides providing the Daisy functionality with strongly simplified interface, Orchid adds some more features:

• dialogs enabling to set various parameters comfortably,
• displays live image in a supplied window, either in hardware or in software live mode,
• saves images to BMP and JPEG files,
• creates AVI files and saves images to it (without sound)
• copies images to Clipboard
• saves configuration to Windows registry or to INI files.

Orchid is language independent and is available as a DLL and as an ActiveX control. It can be used in common visual tools as MS Visual Basic, Borland Delphi and C++ Builder, as well as in traditional MS Visual C++ and Borland C++. Namely the ActiveX version of Orchid enables rapid application development, just by placing the control in the application form and setting its properties and calling its methods.

It offers several modules, each designed for a specific usage (a «Live» module and several «Real-time» modules).

The Live Module

The Live module is suitable namely for developing user-oriented applications, where the need is to see the live image and to store acquired images to BMP or JPEG files or to an AVI stream. Typical areas of such applications are medicine, surveillance, picture databases, etc.

The module uses normal frame grabber's work mode, which enables to have live image on screen with possibility to modify immediately its properties, like size, scaling, mirroring etc. The features include:

• Displaying a live image in a window on screen, either as hardware live or software live. In hardware live window movement/resizing and overlapping is properly handled - whenever the window with the live image is overlapped or not fully visible, the live can be temporarily switched to software live mode.
• Brightness, contrast, hue, saturation settings.
• Scaling/clipping mode, horizontal and vertical mirroring of live image.
• Making a snap in shortest possible time. Possibility to set the snap size and color resolution.
• Copying the snap image to Clipboard.
• Saving the snap image to a BMP or JPEG file.
• Continuous saving of the live image to an AVI file (without sound), with variable frame rate, using one of the installed video compressors.
• Returning the snap bitmap as pointers to Windows Device Independent Bitmap (DIB).
• Displaying a dialog box for grabber/camera/connector selection.
• Displaying a dialog box for live image settings: scaling, mirroring, tone (brightness, contrast, etc.).
• Displaying a dialog box for snap settings: snap size and color resolution.
• Possibility to save/load the settings, so that the next time the application is run, no repetitive manual settings are needed.

Real-time Modules

The real-time modules enable tight cooperation between the camera, grabber and the application, possibly exploiting special camera features, like asynchronous reset or frame integration mode. The acquisition in real-time modules can be triggered by external signal, and the module can notify the application when the acquisition is complete. These features are primarily useful in applications that process the acquired image(s) without any human attention. Typical usage of the real-time modules are machine vision applications for controlling manufacturing lines or checking the production output quality. Also, thanks to the ability to acquire sequences of images, the real-time modules are suitable for applications that need to analyze some fast action in time or need to collect images from multiple cameras in shortest possible time.

The real-time modules offer functionality of Daisy real-time modules, referred in LV-SDS base API documentation as DRALs. The features include:

• Grabbing of an image or sequence of images to an internal buffer in a DIB format and providing access to it via pointers.
• Displaying the acquired sequence in the application window, image by image or as thumbnails.
• Notifying the application about frame, subsequence or sequence completion.
• Possibility to use single or multiple cameras, on single or multiple grabbers.
• Grabbing in a loop to simulate live.
• Copying selected image to Clipboard.
• Saving grabbed images to BMP or JPEG files.
• Adding grabbed images to AVI file.
• Displaying a dialog box with for the module initial settings (master grabber, camera type, shutter type, list of cameras etc.).
• Displaying a dialog box for module run-time settings (timeout, flash, external trigger etc.).
• Enabling fast random camera switching.
• Detecting grab timeout.
• Providing image preprocessing functions (noise reduction, Bayer Array color encoding conversion).

There are 5 types of modules available:

Real-time Basic Module

This module enables to grab a sequence of images from single or multiple cameras, connected to a single or to multiple frame grabbers. The sequence is stored in memory and can be accessed for further image processing. Acquisition can be triggered by an external trigger signal. The functionality is this module is included in all other real-time modules, i.e. the other modules can be considered as an extension to this base module.

Real-time Flash Module

Extends the Real-time Basic module by possibility to control a flash, connected to on-board opto-isolated output. It is possible to set the flash timing, as well as to flash once for the whole frame, or twice, once for each field.

Real-time Asynchronous Reset Module

Enables to utilize so called Asynchronous Reset (by some cameras also referred as Restart/Reset). In this mode the camera can be reset at any time to start acquiring immediately a new field. Whenever the input trigger on the on-board opto-isolated input comes, frame grabber sends the reset signal to the camera with a defined delay, and receives either a single field/frame, or a sequence of fields/frames. The acquired images are then stored in CPU memory and accessible for image processing.

Typical usage of this module is in acquiring images of fast moving objects, namely on production lines.

Real-time Frame Integration Module

Some cameras provide so called frame integration mode, in which the camera is able to expose both fields of the frame in one time (usually using a single flash), and then send the two fields sequentially to the grabber. When the interlaced fields are combined into one frame, the result image is like from a (much more expensive) progressive scan camera, without a motion blur, caused normally by a different time of each field exposition.

This module enables to acquire images with combined interlaced fields into a single frame and to set the flash timing.

Real-time Frame Integration Asynchronous Reset

Some cameras enable to use both the above mentioned modes at once, i.e. to acquire with asynchronous reset and frame integration mode. This module supports such cameras.

Complementary and Related Products 

LV-SDS

Daisy 

Object oriented C++ library providing an essential interface between hardware and the user appication. 

Camera editor 

Interactive application allowing simple setup of standard and non-standard cameras. 

DRAL

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

Third Party Image Processing 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.

Leutron Frame Grabbers and LVmPC^®

PicPort^® & PicPort^®-Pro Frame Grabbers

High quality, cost effective frame grabber line providing interface to various camera types: standard analog (color and monochrome), non-standard analog, LVDS, Camera Link. PicPort^®-Pro is a new board series based on FPGA architecture. Please refer to the product catalog to learn more about individual board types.

PicProdigy^® Frame Grabbers

High-end frame grabber line with similar architecture like PicPort^®-Pro boards, but providing some additional high-end features, especially on-board algorithm accelerators. Please refer to the product catalog to learn more about individual board types.

LVmPC^®

Ultra compact, mobile image processing system for industrial and machine vision, based on standard PC technology and Leutron's PicPort^®/PicProdigy^® frame grabbers.

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