Why am I unable to preview 16-bit image data from my camera?

When I open the preview window after acquiring image data from my camera:

h = preview(vid);

Instead of the video data, a blank/black, or poor contrast white figure window is displayed.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The Preview window will show only show 8-bit data by default, but many cameras can return 10-, 12-, 14-, or 16-bit data. The Preview window display supports these higher bit-depth cameras. However, by default larger bit-depth data is truncated to 8-bit for the purpose of displaying previewed data.

To capture the image data in the Preview window in its full bit depth for grayscale images, set the PreviewFullBitDepth property to 'on' in MATLAB R2021a and later releases:

vid = videoinput('gige',1,'Mono16');
vid.PreviewFullBitDepth = 'on';

You can also configure the preview axes CDataMapping and CLim properties.

vid = videoinput('gige',1,'Mono16'); 
vid.PreviewFullBitDepth = 'on';
h = preview(vid); 
a = ancestor(h, 'axes');
set(h, 'CDataMapping', 'scaled');
% Modify the following numbers to reflect the actual limits of the data
returned by the camera.
% For example the limit a 16-bit camera would be [0 65535].
set(a, 'CLim', [0 65535]);

Please ensure that the preview window remains open while setting the image properties.

Note that in MATLAB R2020b and prior releases you can use the following imaqmex command before creating the videoinput object to enable full bit-depth preview:

imaqmex('feature', '-previewFullBitDepth', true);