areaDetector Prosilica driver

Contents

• Overview
• Implementation of standard driver parameters
• Prosilica specific parameters
• Configuration
• MEDM screens
• Connection management

Overview

This is an EPICS areaDetector driver for Gigabit Ethernet and Firewire cameras from Allied Vision Technologies, who purchased Prosilica. The driver is supported under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X using the vendor library provided for those operating systems.

This driver inherits from ADDriver. It implements nearly all of the parameters in asynNDArrayDriver.h and in ADArrayDriver.h. It also implements a number of parameters that are specific to the Prosilica cameras. The prosilica class documentation describes this class in detail.

Implementation of standard driver parameters

The driver redefines the choices for several of the parameters defined in ADDriver.h. The ADTriggerMode choices for the Prosilica are:

• Free Run (collects images as fast as allowed by the camera readout and the exposure time)
• Sync In 1 (external trigger on line 1)
• Sync In 2 (external trigger on line 2)
• Sync In 3 (external trigger on line 3)
• Sync In 4 (external trigger on line 4)
• Fixed Rate (collects images at a fixed rate)
• Software (single software trigger)

The Prosilica supports hardware timing input and output signals that are supported in the driver.

The NDDataType choices for the Prosilica are:

• NDUInt8 (8-bit data)
• NDUInt16 (12 or 16 bit data)

The NDColorMode choices for the Prosilica are:

• NDColorModeMono (monochromatic data)
• NDColorModeBayer (raw Bayer data)
• NDColorModeRGB1 (RGB1 data)

The color Prosilica cameras are also capable of various YUV color formats but these are not supported in the driver. They may be added in a future release.

Prosilica specific parameters

The Prosilica driver implements the following parameters in addition to those in asynNDArrayDriver.h and ADDriver.h:

Configuration

The Prosilica driver is created with the prosilicaConfig command, either from C/C++ or from the EPICS IOC shell.

int prosilicaConfig(char *portName,
                    const char* cameraId,
                    int maxBuffers, size_t maxMemory,
                    int priority, int stackSize, int maxPvAPIFrames)
  

The cameraId string can be any of the following:

• The camera's UniqueId, which is a number assigned by the vendor to each Prosilica camera, e.g. 50110.
• The camera's IP address, e.g. 164.54.160.48.
• The camera's IP DNS name, e.g. gse-prosilica1.cars.aps.anl.gov.

Using the UniqueId has the advantage that the cameras can be configured to use DHCP, and hence have non-predictable TCP/IP addresses. However, if the UniqueId is used then the areaDetector IOC must be on the same subnet as the camera, since cameras cannot be found by UniqueID through routers. The simplest way to determine the uniqueId of a camera is to run the Prosilica GigEViewer application, select the camera, and press the "i" icon on the bottom of the main window to show the camera information for this camera. The Unique ID will be displayed on the first line in the information window.

The IP address or IP DNS name can be used for cameras with fixed IP addresses, and must be used for cameras that are not on the local subnet.

The maxPvAPIFrames parameter controls how many frame buffers will be used by the PvAPI library. This is the last parameter in the prosilicaConfig command, and if it is absent the default value of 2 is used, which is sufficient in most circumstances. However, with very high frame rates or busy IOCs increasing this value can reduce dropped frames.

For details on the meaning of the other parameters to this function refer to the detailed documentation on the prosilicaConfig function in the prosilica.cpp documentation and in the documentation for the constructor for the prosilica class.

There an example IOC boot directory and startup script (iocBoot/iocProsilica/st.cmd) provided with areaDetector.

MEDM screens

The following is the MEDM screen prosilica.adl.

prosilica.adl

The following is the MEDM screen that provides access to the specific parameters for the Prosilica detector.

prosilicaMore.adl

The following is an IDL epics_ad_display screen displaying the Prosilica detector images.

epics_ad_display.pro

Connection management

The Prosilica driver implements connection management. Cameras do not need to be accessible when the IOC starts up, and can be power-cycled or disconnected and reconnected from the Ethernet without restarting the IOC.

Whenever a new camera is detected on the network the Prosilica library issues a callback to the driver. If the driver is not currently connected to a camera it will attempt to connect when receiving the callback. This mechanism should work no matter how the camera is identified in the startup script, i.e. by Unique ID, IP address, or IP name. It is also possible to manually connect and disconnect the camera by using the $(P)$(R)AsynIO.CNCT PV, which is labeled "Connect" and "Disconnect" on the medm screen.

If the camera is not accessible when the IOC boots, or is power-cycled then the EPICS output records may not match the actual camera settings and readbacks. They can be made to agree by processing the output record, e.g. by pressing Enter or Return in the medm output widget. In the future this may be improved by sending all of the EPICS settings to the camera when it connects, though it is not clear if this would always be the desired behavior.