Adimec Camera Link OPAL Series, Operating And Users Manual

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OPERATING AND USER MANUAL OPAL FAMILY
23
CONTROL OF THE CAMERA
Control of the camera 5.
Introduction 5.1
The camera is fully software controlled via the Camera Link serial channel using a simple ASCII based
protocol. It is possible to save settings as ‘power-up default settings’ in the camera.
Basically there are three ways to control the camera:
By means of the Adimec easy-to-use Windows Control application •
By means of the Adimec Command Console application •
By means of your own dedicated software •
In addition to an explanation on how to use the Adimec communication applications, you will also
find a description of the command structure. This description should be read and understood when
controlling the camera either with the Adimec Command Console application or with your own
dedicated software.
Par 10.4 gives an overview of the camera commands and the possible ranges.
Controlling with the Windows Control application 5.2
The Windows Control application will run on W9x, NT, 2000 and XP (32 bit) operating systems and in
32 bit mode on Vista (64bit) systems.
It does not need installing, simply copy the files to a dedicated directory on the hard disk drive.
NOTE: The serial control signals of the camera needs to be mapped onto a communication channel,
either by means of a hardware breakout circuit (to a hardware COM-port) or by mapping the control
signals onto a serial communication channel supported by the Frame Grabber. In Figures 5.1 and
5.2 both possibilities are depicted in a simplified diagram. The camera in these pictures can either
be a Camera Link version or a CoaXPress version (CL with additional CXP interfacebox or CXP Frame
Grabber).
Camera Link mapped by means of a hardware breakout box Figure 5.1:
Camera
- Video
- Ext. control
- Serial com
Breakout
box
- Video
- Ext. control
- Serial com
Computer
framegrabber
serial COM port
image data
camera control
application