Set Properties for GigE Acquisition

Property Display

One of the main advantages of using the gigecam object for image acquisition, instead of the gige adaptor with the videoinput object, is the advanced property features of GigE Vision^® Compliant hardware.

When you create the gigecam object, the basic properties are displayed, as shown here.

g = gigecam

g = 

Display Summary for gigecam:

         DeviceModelName: 'MV1-D1312-80-G2-12'
            SerialNumber: '022600017445'
               IPAddress: '169.254.192.165'
             PixelFormat: 'Mono8'
   AvailablePixelFormats: {'Mono8' 'Mono10Packed' 'Mono12Packed' 'Mono10' 'Mono12'} 
                  Height: 1082
                   Width: 1312
                 Timeout: 10

Show Beginner, Expert, Guru properties.
Show Commands.

When you click Beginner, the Beginner level camera properties are displayed.

The list of available properties is specific to your camera. The display of properties is broken into categories based on GenICam categories as specified by camera manufacturers. For example, in the display shown here, you can see a set of device control properties, and a set of acquisition control properties. There are other categories not shown in this graphic, such as analog control, convolver, and image format control.

The GigE Vision category standard also provides levels of expertise for the available categories. When you create the gigecam object, you see a small set of commonly used properties with links to the expanded property list based on expertise. To see the additional properties, click Beginner, Expert, or Guru.

Set GigE Properties

You can set properties two different ways — as additional arguments when you create the object using the gigecam function, or anytime after you create the object using the syntax shown in this section.

Set a Property When Creating the Object

When you use the gigecam function with no arguments, it creates the object and connects to the single GigE Vision Compliant camera on your system, or to the first camera it finds listed in the output of the gigecamlist function if you have multiple cameras. If you use an argument to create the object — either an IP address, index number, or serial number — as described in Create the gigecam Object, that argument must be the first argument.

g = gigecam('169.254.242.122')

To set a property when creating the object, it must be specified as a name-value pair after the IP address, index number, or serial number. The following command creates the object using the camera on the IP address used as the first argument, then sets the PixelFormat property to Mono10.

g = gigecam('169.254.242.122', 'PixelFormat', 'Mono10')

If you are creating the object with just one camera connected, you can use the index number 1 as the first input argument, then a property-value pair.

g = gigecam(1, 'PixelFormat', 'Mono10')

You can set multiple properties in this way, and you can use pairs of either character vectors or numerics.

g = gigecam(1, 'ExposureTime', 20000, 'PixelFormat', 'Mono10')

Set a Property After Creating the Object

You can set or change properties any time after you create the object, using this syntax, where g is the object name.

g.ExposureTime = 20000

If you want to change the Timeout from its default value of 10 seconds, to increase it to 20 seconds for example, use this syntax.

g.Timeout = 20

This way of setting properties also supports both character vectors and numerics.

g.LinLog_Mode = 'On';

Note

To get a list of options you can use on a function, press the Tab key after entering a function on the MATLAB^® command line. The list expands, and you can scroll to choose a property or value.

Use GigE Commands

You can use any of the GigE Vision camera commands that your camera supports.

The commands function tells you what commands are available for your camera to use. The output depends on the commands that are supported by your specific hardware. To get the list, use the commands function with the object name, which is g in this example.

commands(g)

Then use executeCommand to execute any of the commands found by the commands function. The command name is passed as a character vector. For example, set a calibration correction.

executeCommand(g, 'Correction_CalibrateGrey');

The camera is set to correct the grey calibration when you acquire images.

You may have a camera that has a command to perform auto focus. With a gigecam object named gcam and a GigE command named AutoFocus.

executeCommand(gcam, 'AutoFocus');

You can also see the list of commands for your camera by clicking the Show Commands link at the bottom of the properties list when you create the gigecam object.