PicProdigy®-ColorPicProdigy®-Color
frame grabbers are capable of digitizing multiple PAL/NTSC color and CCIR/RS170
monochrome analog video signals. Compacting 4 frame grabbers into 1 card,
any 4 of 16 composite video cameras can be digitized simultaneously. The
resultant high quality images can be further conditioned in real time and
transferred to display and/or multiple memory locations in the host computer
over the high bandwidth, expanded functionality PCIbus interface. PicProdigy®-Color
is cost effective, compact and high performance, meeting the demanding
requirements of diverse image processing and machine vision applications.
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ArchitectureThe PicProdigy®-Color architecture is shown in following block diagram: reprogrammable architecture.
OverviewA rich array of on-board features includes Analog Video Buffers and Cross Point Switch, Quad Digitizers, Digital LUTs and Cross Point Switch, Color Space Converter and a real-time Controller. An on-board Frame Buffer is provided to ensure no video data loss under all operating system conditions, and also supports image rotation, mirroring and decimation down-scaling. The CLP (Configurable Logic Processor) is an optional on-board algorithm accelerator composed of a large FPGA plus additional memory. The PicProdigy®-Color-CLP allows the off-loading of time critical image processing algorithms from the host CPU. PicProdigy®-Color architecture is user friendly, employing innovative re-programmable Flash Memory and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technologies. This allows the user to reconfigure the onboard hardware by software updates. The Flash Memory can also be used for security coding to prevent unauthorized copying of user applications proprietary technology. Image Acqusition & ConditioningInput/Output InterfacesThe PicProdigy®-Color input/output interface consists of 5 unique connector types. 2 video connectors are located on the backplate of the board. Each connector is a 26-pin HDSub and comprises 8 differential video signal pairs and 4 camera power pairs (+12 V standard or OEM +5 V). This connection method has been chosen to minimize camera cable costs by allowing simple cable assembly. 1 PC power connector is located on the top edge of the board. Up to 6 A of resettable fused camera power is available to the video connectors by connecting a 5.25" PC power cable to this connector. 2 RS232 header connectors are located on the top edge of the board. Each connector is a 26-pin male header and comprises of 8 RS232 RX/TX/GROUND sets. 1 opto input/output connector, a 26-pin male header, comprises of 4 input and 4 output opto-isolated ports. An assembly consisting of a 26-pin female header plus, ribbon cable, backplate and DB25 female socket is available as a PC internal cable kit option. Application note «External trigger and flash» gives good overview of applications involving external devices such as trigger and flash and about connecting such devices to the frame grabber. Analog Video Buffers and Cross Point SwitchUp to 16 video inputs can be connected to the PicProdigy®-Color. These can be configured as composite NTSC/PAL (16 total) or S-Video (8 total). Each video signal pair is treated as a true differential input to an operational amplifier (i.e. video ground loop noise is eliminated). DC voltages offsets between ¡Ó12 V on the video signal can be tolerated without image degradation. A first order anti-alias filter is provided for each video signal pair to reduce high frequency noise. The combination of these 3 features maximizes video signal quality, even for extended video cable length applications. The 16 video inputs can be connected via software to any of the 4 video decoders via the 16-to-4 non-blocking cross point switch. This includes multiple connections of the same video signal to multiple decoders (e.g. for different scaled versions of the same video signal, all grabbed at full frame rate). Quad Video DigitizersPicProdigy®-Color features 4 high quality video digitizers that convert analog video signals into digital data. Video sources compliant with NTSC/RS170, PAL/CCIR or SECAM/CCIR, in composite or S-video configurations can be digitized. Each digitizer consists of a dual A/D converter (which converts in real time the analog signal to either RGB or YCbCr format digital data) and various analog/digital circuits that allow software control of brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, gain and offset of the video signal. The digitizers can also provide true down scaling of the video images, utilizing a mathematical interpolation method independently along both X and Y axes, resulting in an output image free from any significant loss of detail. Digital Cross Point SwitchPicProdigy®-Color uses a Digital Cross Point Switch to interconnect the various on-board resources, such as Frame Buffer, Quad Digitizers and DMA Controller. The interconnections can be selected under software control. Color Space Conversion and Look Up TablesPacked monochrome, RGB, YUV and YCbCr data formats are supported. There are also 4 general purpose LUTs available to the digitizer data outputs which are general purpose or used in tandem with Color Space Conversion functions. Data Storage and TransferFrame BufferPicProdigy®-Color provides a 32 MB Frame Buffer that stores data from the digitizers until it can be safely transferred off-board over the PCI bus. A sophisticated controller supports the input data streams and output data streams to the PCIbus DMA. Output data can be different in size (region-of-interest) to the input data. Rotation, mirroring and down-scaling (via image decimation) is also supported in the Frame Buffer. Corrupt input frames from the digitizers (due to poor quality video signals) are automatically corrected prior to output to the DMA. Flash MemoryEach PicProdigy®-Color board contains a user accessible Flash Memory, which stores FPGA con-figurations and user defined software «dongle» security information. DMA ControllerAn innovative DMA Controller is provided to allow flexible transfers of image data to host or display memory, with up to 16 simultaneous DMA transfers available to the user. In conjunction with the Color Space Converter, multiple formats of the same image data can be transferred to host and display memory. Please see Technical Specifications for available image data formats. Host Bus InterfaceThe PicProdigy®-Color PCI bus interface supports both 32-bit and 64-bit data formats at 33 MHz. Up to 16 DMA channels are provided to allow flexible memory transfer options. The board is available in a standard full-length PCI form factor. Optional CLP Algorithm AcceleratorPicProdigy®-Color has an optional on-board algorithm accelerator incorporating a large FPGA plus additional memory. This product is called PicProdigy®-Color-CLP. It is suitable for offloading time critical image processing algorithms from the host CPU to increase overall system throughput and optimize system costs. Customer specific algorithms can be implemented either by the user (if he has relevant expertise) or via a contract R&D service. ConfigurationsPicProdigy®-Color exists in three different configurations:
Applications
Application note «External trigger and flash» gives good overview of applications involving external devices such as trigger and flash. Digital I/O InterfaceTrigger I/OFor synchronization of events like start/stop, trigger, good/bad, input/output etc. PicProdigy®-Color boards offer digital inputs and outputs, which can be controlled by software. For use in industrial environment, the signals are isolated by the use of optocouplers. To take full profit of this signal isolation, you have to connect the optocoupler to an external power supply. The optocoupler input is prepared for input signals of 5 V or 24 V with the appropriate onboard serial resistors. For other signal levels an additional serial resistor has to be added to guarantee the proper forward current. The optooupler output is prepared for external voltage of 5 V or 24 V.
See also the following examples of optocoupler output. In industrial environment, signal levels of 24 V are usually needed.
Application note «External trigger and flash» gives good overview of applications involving external devices such as trigger and flash. SoftwareDriver SoftwareLeutron Vision Software Development Suite, LV-SDS, is a software development package (Windows, Linux, VxWorks) that allows full control of all PicPort® and PicProdigy® products. The suite consists of Daisy - the basic software interface for PicPort®/PicProdigy® cards, Camera Editor - easy interactive setup of standard and non-standard cameras, DRAL - a library for handling specific time-critical tasks, Orchid - high level library (DLL or OCX) for quick and easy design of PicPort®/PicProdigy® applications, TWAIN Driver and Video for Windows - provide a simple interface between Leutron Vision hardware and other office and image manipulation programs (e.g. MS Office, CorelDRAW, etc.). The software products come complete with a set of demo programs and additional examples with source code as a guide to the programmer in developing particular applications. To obtain more comprehensive information please download the LV-SDS manual. Third Party SoftwareSeveral well-known third party packages for real-time image processing and analysis are also supported. The packages include HALCON, Activ Vision Tools, NeuroCheck, and others. Please refer to our detailed software brochure (PDF) for more details. Connector DescriptionI/O connector configurationsPicProdigy®-Color boards are equipped with following set of connectors:
Connector wiring schemesPicProdigy®-Color for standard PCI bus. Pin description table for 26-pin (HD-sub, female) universal camera connectors:
Pin description table for 26-pin (male header) RS232 interface connectors:
Pin description table for 26-pin (male header) digital i/o optocoupler interface connector:
DIP Switch DescriptionThe PicProdigy®-Color provides four (board rev. 1) resp. two (board rev. 2) DIP switches (U5 on the diagram above) which determine the basic operating modes of the board. The following tables liststhe functions of individual switches for all board revisions: Board revision 1
Board revision 2
PCI Gold Bank Protection (DIP Switches 0 & 1) PCI Gold Banks should normally never be changed by the user. The prime function of the PCI Gold Banks is to guarantee a recovery mechanism after a Flash Bank programming cycle for an onboard FPGA has failed due to a system crash or power failure. In these cases the Flash Bank programming cycle can not be repeated without rebooting the system. However, since one or more Flash Banks may now contain corrupted FPGA configuration data it must ensured that these banks are not used for FPGA configuration after the next system reboot. For this purpose DIP switch 0 of the Flash Controller (GoldBootSel) must be set to the 'ON' position. In GoldBoot mode the Flash Controller configures the PCI-FPGA from the Gold PCI Bank but leaves the Video-FPGA and CLP-FPGA idle. The Flash programming cycle can now be repeated. After the Flash programming has been completed successfully the GoldBootSel can be reset and the system must be power-cycled (not soft-reset) before the Flash Bank update takes effect. Technical Specifications
Complementary and Related ProductsSupporting softwareComprehensive set of software tools consisting of video capture libraries and image processing libraries for Windows XP/2000/NT4, Windows Me/98/95 and for Linux. Please check especially the following ones:
Suitable CamerasPlease check the list of suitable cameras (analog color models) for use with PicProdigy®-Color. The link invokes page showing wide list of different suitable cameras, allowing you to specify more criterions and restrict the list only to the cameras exactly matching your needs. Correspondent cablesAll the necessary cables for connecting a camera to the framegrabber are available. Related Frame Grabbers
LVmPC®LVmPC® is an ultra compact, mobile image processing system for industrial and machine vision, based on standard PC technology and Leutron's frame grabber series. LVmPC® is available in a huge variety of different configurations. Ordering Information
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