Installation Guide for the Coreco Oculus-TCi family driver version 1.20 for Optimas 6.x ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Document Revision 1.17) (c) Copyright Coreco Inc., 1997 IMPORTANT NOTES: For complete instructions on installation and setup of your Oculus TCi Board, please refer to the "TCi User's Manual". This manual deals with the TCi drivers for Optimas under Windows 95 and Windows NT Table of Contents 1. What you need to get going. 2. Installing the TCi family device driver 3. Installing the Oculus TCi driver for Optimas 4. Using Optimas with a TCi Frame Grabber 5. Information specific to the TCi-SE 6. Information specific to the TCi-VGA 7. Information specific to the TCi-Ultra 8. Optimas INI file entries for the TCi line of frame grabbers 9. Calling ODX functions from Optimas Macros 10. Frequently Asked Questions 11. Bugs and limitations 12. History of the Oculus TCi driver for Optimas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1.0 What you need to get going 1.1 An Oculus-TCi Frame Grabber 1.2 The Oculus-TCi family device driver The TCi driver for Windows 95 OR, the TCi driver for Windows NT 1.3 TCIPRO.EXE to test your TCi frame grabber 1.4 The TCi family driver for Optimas File Name: TCIDRV32.DLL for Optimas 6.x Part Code: WA-TCIS-OPTI6 1.5 If all else fails, here are a few helpful access points: Coreco voice: (514) 333-1301 -ask for techsupport. (1-800-361-4914 in the U.S.) Coreco fax: (514) 333-1388 Coreco FTP: ftp.coreco.com (/clients/coreco/public/...) Coreco Web Page: www.coreco.com Coreco BBS: (514) 333-6592 2.0 Installing the Oculus TCi Family device driver Note: Please follow the instructions specific to your TCi product, in the TCi User's Guide. 2.1 Run the ODTCI installation program that is located on the Oculus-TCi family device driver disk. This will install the TCi device driver (ODTCI.DLL), as well as the Windows-based Oculus-TCi Configuration utility. 2.2 Run the TCi configuration utility to set up your TCi board. 2.3 BEFORE TRYING TO RUN OPTIMAS WITH YOUR TCI FRAME GRABBER, insure that your TCi board is running properly by installing and running the TCi demonstration program (TCIPRO.EXE). This program comes on the diskette labeled TCiPro Executable. 3.0 Installing the Oculus-TCi driver for Optimas 3.1 Install Optimas if not already installed. 3.2 Run the installation program (SETUP.EXE) from the disk labeled Oculus-TCi family driver for Optimas. This will first locate the Optimas INI file on your system, then it will install the TCi driver for Optimas (TCIDRV32.DLL) in the Optimas Drivers directory (unless you choose to put it somewhere else). 4.0 Using Optimas with an Oculus-TCi Frame Grabber After setting up your TCi frame grabber according to the instructions in the TCi User's Guide and testing the functionality of the board using TCIPRO, you are ready to use Optimas. 4.1 Choose [File - New Image]. Pick the Coreco Oculus-TCi driver, Version 1.20 driver from the list in FRAME TYPES. 4.2 At this point, you can launch the Oculus TCi Configuration program by clicking on the [Configure] button. (Typically, the TCi should have already been configured at this point) 4.3 Once you click OK, the Optimas View Window will open up, and you can get to work. 4.4 If you make any changes using Oculus TCI Configuration program [File - New - Configure] while the TCI View Window is active, the changes will not become active until the TCI View Window is closed and then reopened. This is because the changes made using the Oculus TCI Configuration utility are made active until the driver is restarted. 5.0 Information specific to the TCi-SE For the TCI-SE to work properly, your VGA card must be in either 32k color mode (16 bits) OR 16.7 million color mode (32 bits). (See TCI-SE's user's manual for VGA card compatibility list). Also, the Host frame buffer size must be the same as the acquisition dimensions of your camera (e.g. if your acquiring with RS-170, set your Host Frame Buffer dimensions to 640x480). 5.1 Displaying live video without a display section Given that the TCI-SE has no on-board display capability, displaying acquired video must be performed by the system VGA card. Therefore, during live acquisition video is sent to the host frame buffer and then passed to Optimas for display. The net result of this little video detour is a slight bandwidth penalty during the live grab (your live image may be a bit "jumpy"). 6.0 Information specific to the TCi-VGA At this time, Coreco does NOT officially support the TCi-VGA under Optimas. However, if you do choose to use the TCi-VGA with Optimas, you can expect the following limitations: For the TCI-VGA to work properly in single monitor mode, your VGA card must be in 16.7 million color mode (32 bits). (This is the only display mode available from the DEC driver). When in 16 million color - single monitor mode, the Neptune PCi chipset may not grab at the higher resolution scales (i.e. 640x480 and/or 320x240) due to bandwidth limitations of the Neptune chipset. When in Single monitor mode, the Triton PCi chipset may cause your computer to freeze due to a PCi "bus-arbitration" dead-lock. 7.0 Information specific to the TCi-Ultra 7.1 The Ultra is also able to display in 2 monitor mode or single monitor mode using hardware pass-through. 7.2 When using the RGB module, scaling must be set to maximum (NTSC: 640x480, PAL: 768x576). 7.3 When in single-monitor hardware-pass-through, scrolling and panning the image within the confines of the View Window is accomplished by physically moving the image around the screen. Obviously, the only part of the image that can be seen is that which shows through the view window's keying color. Unfortunately, the TCi-Ultra is unable to move the image passed the edge of the screen. The result is that in certain situations the scrolling or panning control will simply stop working, because the image has reached the edge of the screen. 8.0 Optimas INI file entries for the TCi line of frame grabbers This section describes the entries that can be found in the [TCIDRV32] section of the Optimas INI file. FGLibrary - This entry is used to tell Optimas where to find the driver DLL. ex: FGLibrary=c:\optimas6\drivers\tcidrv32.dll Configuration Path - Should be set to the path leading to the configuration utility for the TCi device driver. This program is usually found in the TCi device driver directory and goes by the name of TCICONF.EXE. ex: Configuration Path=C:\ODTCI95 xPosAlignDialog - This is the horizontal component one of two values that are saved to the INI file when the VGA Keying Alignment is saved by the Keying Alignment Dialog. This entry only applies to the TCi-Ultra / Ultra II boards in single monitor hardware passthrough. ex: xPosAlignDialog=750 yPosAlignDialog - This is the vertical component of two values that are saved to the INI file when the VGA Keying Alignment is saved by the Keying Alignment Dialog. This entry only applies to the TCi-Ultra / Ultra II boards in single monitor hardware passthrough. ex: yPosAlignDialog=130 ShowAlignmentDialog - This entry is used when the TCi-Ultra (or Ultra II) is in single monitor passthrough mode. It allows you to enable or disable a dialog box that lets you adjust the VGA chroma keying position, from within Optimas. When this dialog is enabled, it appears every time the live grab is started. ex: ShowAlignmentDialog=1 ; to enable (default setting) ShowAlignmentDialog=0 ; to disable ShowSequenceWarning - This entry is used when any TCi frame grabber is asked to acquire a sequence of images [Image - Sequence Acquire...] in really time. If this entry is enabled, a warning dialog will pop up if there are not enough host frame buffers to complete the request (when this happens, it is Optimas that does the sequence acquisition). ex: ShowSequenceWarning=1 ; to enable (default setting) ShowSequenceWarning=0 ; to disable 9.0 Calling ODX functions from Optimas Macros It is now possible to call ODX API functions directly from Optimas Macros. In the following example "fbgrab()" is used to snap a single frame: // Macro to start a live grab DLL_FUNCTION_SPEC fbgrab; fbgrab=Register("TCIDRV32.DLL", "_fbgrab", "%v%d"); CALL(fbgrab, -1); Delete(fbgrab); // Macro to set the processing window to position 10, // 10 at 50 x 50 DLL_FUNCTION_SPEC pwin; pwin=Register("TCIDRV.DLL", "_pwin", "%v%d%d%d%d"); CALL(pwin, 10, 10, 50, 50); Delete(pwin); Support for the ODX functions depends on which version of the TCi Device Driver you have. The following is a list of the currently available ODX function calls. NOTE: for information on ODX function parameters, please consult the "ODX Programmer's Toolkit". ODX Function Win95 WinNT (>= ver. 2.40) (>= ver. 2.40) _acqscale * * _amov * * _cntr * * _cntrfirst * * _cntrnext * * _config * * _convo * * _deffbcycle * * _defvidin * * _drwbox * * _drwdots * * _drwline * * _dwin * * _ext_inq * * _fbgrab * * _format _fwin * * _histo * * _ld_ilut * * _ld_olut * * _lutop * * _mdpixblt * * _memclose * * _memopen * * _memropen * * _odxid * * _opr_inq * * _opr_set * * _paint * * _pwin * * _rdbuf * * _rdline * * _rdpix * * _reset * * _roa * * _seteventfct * * _select * * _target * * _text * * _vidin * * _wtbuf * * _wtline * * _wtpix * * _zoom * * 10.0 Frequently Asked Questions How come my live image is in color when I am supposed to be in 8 bit gray mode? This situation occurs when you open a "TCi Image" using an "8 bit gray" pixel format and your frame buffer mode is in color (32k colors or 16m colors - set in the TCI configuration utility). In this case image data is in color until the grab is stopped. Once the grab is stopped, the image data is converted to 8 bit gray. Why is the live grab slow and/or "jumpy" with my TCi-SE and TCi-VGA? The reason is most likely that your VGA card is not DCI-capable. In this case, each frame of live video must be converted to a "device-dependent-bitmap" before being transfered to the View-window. This added processing is what slows down the live grab. Why do the Pan and Scroll Controls sometimes stop working with the TCi-Ultra in single monitor mode? See section 7.3 Groups of empty bins when reading the histogram: This will only happen when your frame buffer is in 16 bit mode. When the frame buffer is in 16 bit mode, the RGB data is arranged in 5551 format. In other words, each color element is assigned 5 bits. When Optimas reads the data from the TCi driver, it must first be converted to 24 bit RGB (888) data. In this way, each 5 bit color element (coming from the frame buffer) is pushed into the top 5 bits of each 8 bit color element (being passed to Optimas). How do I re-enable the "VGA Alignment" dialog box? This is done by setting the ShowAlignmentDialog entry to 1 in the OPTIMAS.INI file (see section 8.0 for more details). Why do I get noise around the image in pass-through with a live grab? This is simply residual noise in the unused memory space of the frame buffer. To get rid of this, simply set the Frame Buffer's Logical Format to the same dimensions as your VGA display (i.e. VGA in 1024x768, set the Logical Format to 1024x768). This will give the Optimas driver access to the unused protion of memory so that it can be kept clear. 11.0 Know Bugs and limitations TCi device driver limitation (version 2.40): Hardware output lookup tables are only supported when the Frame Buffer Pixel Type is Monochrome 8 bits. Limitation with the Optimas driver (version 1.20): There is a problem with the support of 16 and 32 bit overlays (with the Ultra II in dual monitor overlay mode). The problem is due to the fact that Optimas only supports a maximum of 8 bit overlays and implements color using output lookup tables for color and in 16 and 32 color modes, the overlay frame buffer does not support output lookup tables. The result is that we sometimes end up with unwanted leftover artefacts in the overlay frame buffer. Optimas 6.11 limitation: Currently Optimas only supports monochrome input look-up tables. Problem with Optimas 6.11: When the Frame Buffer Pixel Type RGB 16 or 32 and the TCi driver for Optimas is started in 8 bit mono mode, the monochrome thresholding will not display the yellow threshold color. Problem with Optimas 6.11: When the Frame Buffer Pixel Type is Monochrome 8 bits, the print preview will display the image in pseudo color instead of monochrome data. 12.0 History of the Oculus TCi driver for Optimas Version 1.20, December 5th, 1997 * Modified the Input Lookup Tables when a TCi-SE is present. * Added a small fix to the contrast adjustement when an RGB source is present (the control was affecting the contrast backwards). * Added a dialog that warns the user if there are not enough host frame buffers to do real-time sequence acquisition to the host. * Added an entry to the Optimas INI file (ShowSequenceWarning) that allows the user to disable the sequence acquisition warning. * Fixed a problem that was preventing Optimas from re-drawing the ROI when the view window was re-sized (when a TCi-SE was present). * Added the Advanced Camera Control dialog. This enables control of external trigger adn camera exposure control (consult your TCi frame grabber's users manual for availability of these features). * Added support for the 16 and 32 bit Overlay modes. Note: There are problems with the support of 16 and 32 bit overlays given that Optimas only supports a maximum of 8 bit overlays with output lookup tables for color. The result is that we sometimes end up with unwanted artefacts in the overlay frame buffer. * Fixed a problem with the sequence acquisition in which the last frame ended up as the first image in the sequence. * Fixed a problem with the TCi-SE: the live grab was not scrolling properly when the view window was smaller than the image size (display.c) * Modified ScrollDisplay() and PanDisplay() so that the frame buffer is panned and scrolled in dual monitor mode. * Fixed a problem with the view window tracking for the TCi Ultra in keying mode. When the scroll bars were visible, the Optimas-drawn overlays were sometimes out of sync. with the contents of the frame buffer. * Fixed a problem with the inability to move the view window when a TCi-SE is present. * Added support for real time Sequence Acquisition. * Changed the driver file name from TCIDRV95.DLL to TCIDRV32.DLL to indicate compatibility with Windows 95 and Windows NT. * Fixed corrupted live grab during brightness / contrast adjustements. * Fixed the GPF that occurred when the TCi configuration utility was accessed from the New Image dialog box. * Now the Optimas-generated overlays (all TCi frame grabbers in single monitor mode) stay visible during a live grab. * Now the Keying Alignment dialog is disable in the Optimas INI file when the user selects "don't show this dialog again". (This means that the user now has to edit the Optimas INI file to make the dialog reappear). * Added support for digital cameras having image sizes greater than NTSC and/or PAL formats. * Added support for Input Lookup Tables. Note: although the TCi driver support color input lookup tables, Optimas only support monochrome input lookup table. * Fixed a problem that would not permit the changing of input channels during a live grab. * Added a new entry to the Optimas INI file for enabling / disabling the VGA alignment dialog box. * Added support for the new configuration utility (tciconf.exe) that comes with the TCi device driver (version 2.00) for Windows 95. * The frame rate of software passthrough (with the TCi-SE and TCi-VGA in single monitor mode) has been improved considerably. Version 1.04 December 2nd, 1996 * Added support for odx function calls from Optimas Macros (see section 9.0); * Added a VGA "Chroma-Keying-Alignment" dialog. This permits interactive adjustment of the VGA Alignment in single monitor mode (TCi-Ultra and Ultra II); * Added support for dual-monitor color overlays (TCi-Ultra and Ultra II); * Added support for output lookup tables (used for thresholding in 256 color dual-monitor mode / TCi-VGA, TCi-Ultra, Ultra II); Version 1.03 June 18th, 1996 * Added support for the TCi-VGA and the TCi-Ultra; * Added support for dual-screen operation (TCi-VGA and TCi-Ultra); * Added support for hardware pass-through (TCi-Ultra). * Added macro support for "_deffbcycle" and "_seteventfct". For the TCi-SE and the TCi-VGA, the image-resfresh was rendered asynchronous in order to increase the "image-refresh-rate" in the Optimas View Window for the live grab. Version 1.02 January 16th, 1996 * An incompatibility with the ODX configuration structure is fixed. Version 1.01 November 22nd, 1995 * DCI capability is added; * DCI services are only used if "ForceNoDCI" is set to 0 in OPTIMAS.INI and if the user's system is DCI capable (see your VGA card documentation for more information). Version 1.00 November 9th, 1995 * This is the first implementation of Oculus TCI-SE driver for Optimas; * This implementation does NOT have DCI capability.Download Driver Pack
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