Image-acquisition board handles multiple cameras

JULY 9-National Instruments (Austin, TX; www.ni.com) offers the NI PXI-1409 4-channel, monochrome, image-acquisition board, which combines the PCI bus with timing and triggering features to provide asynchronous acquisition and integration with motion and data acquisition devices. The board works with RS-170 or CCIR cameras, slow or variable pixel-clock cameras, double-speed progressive-scan cameras, and analog line-scan cameras.

This board can achieve user-configurable resolution with 8-bit (256 gray scale) or 10-bit (1024 gray scale) digital outputs. It is compatible with analog, double-speed progressive-scan cameras at speeds to 60 frames/s. Key features include four video inputs for multiple cameras, 16 Mbytes of on-board memory, and a 60-dB dynamic range.

With NI-IMAQ driver software, users can easily change the camera used in their applications, such as replacing an RS-170 camera with a higher-resolution analog camera, with fewer software changes This software uses one set of function calls for a variety of cameras, including cameras with slow or variable pixel clock rates ranging from 2 to 40 MHz.