Machine Vision

 

Since the beginning of this year, customer feedback regarding pylon’s beta 0.9 version has been collected and reviewed. That feedback has been integrated into pylon’s new 1.0 version. The biggest change in this first "official" version can be seen in the much more comfortable installation support. A GUI based application now offers the user simple check boxes to make individual selections from the available driver components. The integration of both a GigE Vision and an IEEE 1394b interface means that a single pylon installation can support all models of Basler’s new scout and pilot camera series. The pylon driver package also supports older Basler camera models such as the A100, A300 and A600 series. All cameras can be controlled with a single set of commands via pylon’s unified C++ camera API. The aggressive use of GenICam technology (see www.GenICam.org) for both GigE and IEEE 1394 cameras provides the basis for this advantage. To achieve fast, reliable image data transport into the memory of the PC, the pylon package offers two different kinds of drivers for use with GigE networks. The GigE Vision Performance driver provides maximum performance with minimum CPU load by using Intel specific hardware features. The GigE Vision Filter driver is less CPU efficient, but can operate with all types of network interface cards. A DMA driver that handles the data packets generated by IEEE 1394 camera devices operates with a very low resource requirement of 2% CPU load or less.

The viewer application included with pylon is based on the pylon C++ camera API and gives the user a comfortable way to test and evaluate Basler Camera devices and features. The pylon viewer simultaneously supports all types and any number of GigE Vision and IEEE 1394 cameras in a single application. Different user levels from “Beginner” through “Guru” provide safe entry for users at all knowledge levels. The new tree structure for all pylon camera menu elements eliminates the need to search through an unorganized array of element descriptions. And when new features are added to a camera, they will be immediately accessible as a new tree node once the extended GenICam XML file for the new camera has been parsed.

Two different pylon driver package setups are available. The “run time package” contains all drivers, the viewer, and a DirectX interface, and it is available for free at the Basler website. The run time package focuses on the testing and evaluation camera use cases. The pylon Software Development Kit (SDK) package includes the items in the run time package plus library and include files for application development. An interactive programming guide and a large number of C++ sample programs for MS Visual Studio 7.1 and 8.0 complete the SDK package. The pylon SDK is only available via CD. The unique serial number issued for each pylon SDK package ensures prompt, individualized support for our customers.