HALCON 5.2 frame grabber interface for the Matrox Meteor-I board

This document provides some information about the HALCON frame grabber interface Meteor.so for the Matrox frame grabber board Meteor-I. Registered customers can download the latest revision of this interface from the MVTec WWW server. Please note that this interface currently supports only basic grabbing functions!

Attention: This HALCON frame grabber interface is based on a public domain driver for the Meteor board. You can find the current version of this driver at ftp://ftp.rwii.com/pub/linux/system/Meteor/. Please read carefully all the README files in this package. There also exists a specific Meteor user's mailing list for help and general discussion about this package. Make sure that the example programs included in the driver package do work properly before trying to open the frame grabber via the HALCON frame grabber interface.

Revision: 1.32

• Intel compatible PC with Linux (kernel 2.0.x). Note that we have tested this HALCON frame grabber interface only using the SuSE distribution 5.x and 6.0 and the Meteor driver (versions 1.4c and 1.5.3).
• Successfully installed Meteor driver meteor.o. You've to follow the instructions in the README files of the driver package (Don't forget to install the bigphysarea kernel patch). Make sure that the example programs of the driver package do work properly.
• HALCON frame grabber interface Meteor.so revision 1.32 or higher.
  If you have properly installed the interface, Meteor.so should reside in lib/i486-unknown-linux2.0.0 within the HALCON base directory $HALCONROOT you have chosen during the installation of HALCON.

• Multiple frame grabber boards.
• Synchronous grabbing.
• Subsampling.

• Only one camera per frame grabber board.
• No asynchronous grabbing (grab_image_async not supported).
• No cropping of image parts.
• No external trigger.
• grab_region and grab_region_async not supported.
• No LUTs.

Parameters for open_framegrabber():

	Name	'Meteor'	The name of the HALCON frame grabber interface.
	FGWidth	1, 2, 4, width	The desired image resolution. Use '1' for full resolution, '2' for subsampling by factor 2, '4' for subsampling by factor 4. Default: 1.
	FGHeight	1, 2, 4, height	The desired image resolution. Use '1' for full resolution, '2' for subsampling by factor 2, '4' for subsampling by factor 4. Default: 1.
	Width	0	The width of the desired image part ('0' stands for for the complete image). Default: 0.
	Height	0	The height of the desired image part ('0' stands for for the complete image). Default: 0.
	StartRow	0	The row coordinate of the upper left pixel within the desired image part. Default: 0.
	StartColumn	0	The column coordinate of the upper left pixel within the desired image part. Default: 0.
	Field	---	Ignored.
	Bits	8, 16, 24	Number of bits per pixel: Grayscale (8 bits) or color (24 bits). The 16 bit mode is used if you connect two different black&white cameras to the red and the green signal of the RGB supply (only supported by the Meteor/RGB board!). In this case you will get a "stereo" image (Note that you have to synchronize the two cameras externally). Default: 24.
	ColorSpace	'rgb'	Desired color space (fixed). Default: 'rgb'.
	Gain	---	Ignored.
	ExternalTrigger	'false'	External triggering is not supported. Default: 'false'.
	Generic	'NTSC', 'PAL', 'SECAM'	The generic parameter is used to specify the video signal: 'NTSC', 'PAL' or 'SECAM'. Default: 'PAL'.
	Device	'devicename'	The desired device of the frame grabber board. Default: '/dev/meteor0'.
	Port	1, 2, 3	Specifies the video input (together with the parameters 'Bits' and 'Generic'): '1' denotes the S-VHS jack, '2' the RCA (composite video) jack, and '3' the RGB (SUBD) jack. Default: 1.
	LineIn	1	The desired input line (fixed). Default: 1.

Parameters for set_framegrabber_param(): Not supported.

Parameters for get_framegrabber_param():

	'revision'	revision	Revision of the HALCON frame grabber interface Meteor.so.

• Revision 1.32 (March 26, 1999):
  
  • HALCON 5.2 version of the interface (included in the HALCON 5.2 CD).
  • New parameter 'revision'; several bugfixes.
  Revision 1.18 (March 10, 1998):
  
  • HALCON 5.1 version of the interface (included in the HALCON 5.1 CD).