National Instruments PXI-1428 - Manual (Page 8)

© National Instruments Corporation 1-1 IMAQ PCI/PXI-1428 User Manual
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Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of the IMAQ PCI/PXI-1428 image
acquisition device, the Camera Link standard, Camera Link and
IMAQ 1428 interfacing guidelines, and your software programming
choices.
About the IMAQ 1428
The IMAQ 1428 is a highly flexible image acquisition (IMAQ) device that
supports a diverse range of Camera Link-compatible cameras from various
camera companies. The IMAQ 1428 acquires digital images in real time
and stores the images in onboard frame memory or transfers them directly
to system memory. Featuring a high-speed data flow path, the IMAQ 1428
is ideal for both industrial and scientific environments.
The IMAQ 1428 is easy to install and configure. It ships with NI-IMAQ,
the National Instruments complete IMAQ driver software you can use to
directly control the IMAQ 1428 and other National Instruments IMAQ
hardware products. With NI-IMAQ, you can quickly and easily start your
applications without having to program the device at the register level.
The IMAQ 1428 supports the Camera Link Base configuration. The
VHDCI 68-pin connector provides access to the 8-bit
× 4 mode of the
Camera Link Medium configuration. For further configuration
information, refer to the
Camera Link and IMAQ 1428 section of
Chapter 3, Hardware Overview .
The VHDCI 68-pin connector has four external input/output (I/O) lines you
can use as triggers or as high-speed digital I/O lines.
For more advanced digital or analog system triggering or digital I/O lines,
you can use the IMAQ 1428 and NI-IMAQ with the National Instruments
data acquisition (DAQ) or motion control product lines.
Synchronizing several functions to a common trigger or timing event can
be a challenge with image acquisition devices. The IMAQ 1428 uses the
Real-Time System Integration (RTSI) bus to solve this problem.