DALSA/CORECO PC-RGB Product Description:

PC-RGB is a high performance, low-cost PCI-bus image capture board that provides the industry's fastest transfer of color or monochrome video data to host computer memory. PC-RGB combines a high performance frame grabber, 4MB of on-board memory to speed image transfers, unique on-board circuitry for precise interrupt control, OPTO-22 compatible digital I/O for controlling external events, and support for a wide range of cameras.

The PC-RGB can acquire monochrome (up to 3 simultaneous input channels - 6 total inputs) or RGB color data (2 RGB channels) from RS-170, CCIR, progressive scan, and variable scan cameras. Data is stored in on-board frame memory in one of the following available formats: 8-bit (any channel R, G, or B), 16-bit (converts 24-bit RGB to 16- bit YCrCb), 24-bit packed, 32-bit (RGBa or aRGB), or 32-bit planar mode (separates each 8-bit channel). PC-RGB uses a special hardware scatter gather technique to provide continuous high-speed image transfers across the PCI-bus at rates up to 120MB/s sustained with almost no host CPU involvement.

Another key advantage of the PC-RGB is it can transfer images and selected Areas of Interest (AOIs, up to 4K by 4K) out of memory, at full speed, without the need to write any special code. Additionally, on-board circuitry enables non-destructive graphic overlays, such as annotation, windows, and cross-hairs on live images. PC-RGB provides additional advanced features including padding (sending 8-bit data to a 16-bit color surface of VGA), clipping (allowing data to be bus mastered directly to a VGA target without seeing "color dots" - Windows reserved values), and programmable X/Y zooming (x2, x4).

PC-RGB provides users with a deterministic response to interrupts through a combination of special on-board timing circuitry and Coreco Imaging’s VIXN (Virtual Interrupt eXtensioN) software. When used together, industrial machine vision users can be guaranteed precise control of interrupts in Windows NT and can use PC-RGB to control I/O lines that would have traditionally required a programmable controller (PLC).

FEATURES

• PCI-bus card moves images to the host PC in less than 4 ms
• Provides high-speed simultaneous acquisition and transfer to host with minimal CPU involvement
• Image transformations on transfer to host memory with no additional CPU usage
• Supports programmable OPTO-22 compatible I/O, trigger, strobe and frame reset for developers with “real world” applications and demanding cycle times

DALSA/CORECO PC-RGB Technical Information

• Sensor Interface:
  Input - 2 RGB Color or up to 2 sets of 3 synchronous RS-170, CCIR monochrome cameras
  Programmable time base generator for standard and non-standard video formats: resolution to 4K x 4K
  PLL or XTAL mode (Outputs horizontal/composite, vertical and reset timing to camera. 3 sync sets available for driving 3 simultaneous monochrome cameras)
  Progressive scan (non-interlaced) signals supported
  Variable scan cameras are supported, single ended TTL timing (0--30 MHz)


• Video Digitizer:
  Monotonic 24-bit flash ADC; Input sample rate programmable to 30 MHz video bandwidth, 48 dB SNR


• Video Memory:
  4MB


• Video Signal Conditioning:
  Programmable input gain selection (4 gain factors)
  Programmable positive and negative signal reference: 0 to +5 Volts in 256 steps
  Video low-pass anti-aliasing filter
  DC restoration: programmable clamp pulse


• On-Board Digital I/O:
  OPTO-22 compatible


• Color Space Converter and Look-Up Table:
  10-bit precision 3x3 30 MHz matrix multiplier and a 64K DWORD (32 in - 32 out) ILUT following ADC


• Transfer Rates:
  Less than 4 ms per image, sustained transfer is greater than 110MB/s


• External Trigger, Strobe Control, and Frame Reset:
  Trigger provides synchronization to external events: 3 TTL with Schmitt Trigger, 2 Opto-coupled, 1 RS-422 differential
  Flexible strobe control
  Support for frame reset cameras
  E-Donpisha supported


• Video Window Generator:
  Programmable resolutions up to 4K x 4K. Area of Interest (AOI)


• Interrupts:
  Software interrupts can be generated at the start of the strobe pulse, the start of a vertical blank, at the end of a trigger cycle, or at the end of Bus Master and others


• Data formatting:
  Hardware color dot clipping
  On-board decimation
  8-bit monochrome
  16-bit (converts 24-bit RGB to 16-bit YcrCb 4:2:2)
  24-bit (packs 24-bit RGB to data into 32-bit DWORDS) This saves memory and supports standard color VGA cards
  32-bit standard RGBa or aRGB format
  32-bit planar mode separates data from each 8-bit input into its own plane in memory


• Display - Windows:
  Display resolution as per installed VGA device driver
  A DirectX compatible SVGA adapter required for real-time display


• Automatic Double Buffered Full Frame Acquisition:
  Hardware controlled “ping-pong” acquisition into image memory, provides most efficient acquisition and bus-master synchronization possible


• Bus Requirements:
  32-bit PCI slot
  1.3 A @ +5 Volts
  0.2 A @ + 12 Volts
  8” long PCI card


• Power Output:
  500 mA @ +12 Volts per camera (1 A total)