Image Acquisition Toolbox 3.2

Product Description

• Introduction and Key Features
• Working with Image Acquisition Toolbox
• Performing Image Acquisition in Simulink
• Advanced Acquisition Features
• Image Acquisition Example

Working with Image Acquisition Toolbox

Image Acquisition Toolbox helps you connect to and configure your hardware, preview the acquisition, and acquire and visualize image data. You can use the toolbox from the Image Acquisition Tool, the MATLAB command line, or the From Video Device block within Simulink. This lets you control your image acquisition parameters and incorporate them into M-scripts, applications built within MATLAB, or Simulink models.

Within the toolbox, the Image Acquisition Tool is a graphical user interface for working with image and video acquisition devices in MATLAB. With this tool, you can see all hardware available on your PC, change device settings, preview an acquisition, control acquisition parameters, and acquire image or video data. You can also record data directly to an AVI file or export hardware configuration settings to an M-file so that you can incorporate them into other MATLAB scripts.

A scientific camera connected to a laptop using a FireWire connection. MATLAB interfaces with the camera using Image Acquisition Toolbox. Click on image to see enlarged view.

Connecting to Hardware

Image Acquisition Toolbox automatically detects compatible image and video acquisition devices. The connection to your devices is encapsulated as an object, providing an interface for configuration and acquisition. You can create multiple connection objects for simultaneous acquisition from as many devices as your PC and imaging hardware support.

Configuring Hardware

The toolbox provides a consistent interface across multiple hardware devices and vendors, simplifying the configuration process. You configure your hardware by using the Image Acquisition Tool or by modifying the properties of the object associated with the hardware on the MATLAB command line. The toolbox also supports camera files from hardware vendors.

You can set base properties that are common to all supported hardware. These properties can include video format, resolution, region of interest (ROI), and returned color space. You can also set device-specific properties, such as hue, saturation, brightness, frame rate, contrast, and video sync, if your device supports these properties.

Previewing the Acquisition

The Image Acquisition Toolbox video preview window helps you verify and optimize your acquisition parameters. It instantly reflects any adjustments that you make to acquisition properties. The Image Acquisition Tool has a built-in preview window, and you can add one to any application built with MATLAB.

Acquiring Image Data

Image Acquisition Toolbox can continuously acquire image data while you are processing the acquired data in MATLAB or Simulink. The toolbox automatically buffers acquired data into memory, handles memory and buffer management, and enables acquisition from an ROI. Data can be acquired in a wide range of data types, including signed or unsigned 8-, 16-, and 32-bit integers and single- or double-precision floating point. The toolbox supports any color space provided by the image acquisition device, such as RGB, YUV, or grayscale. Raw sensor data in a Bayer pattern can be automatically converted into RGB data. The toolbox supports any frame rate and video resolution supported by your PC and imaging hardware.

A typical session with the Image Acquisition Tool. You can use this tool instead of the MATLAB command line to set up and acquire images and video. Click on image to see enlarged view.