Recording video from microscope

[RaymondLo]

Hello all,

Our lab borrowed a Photometrix CoolSnap EZ2 camera and want to time our LabView data acquisition program with it. I had written a program that times an USB webcam with our Labview DAQ program, and I had naively thought that the EZ2 would work the same way.

It turns out that there doesn't exist a free VIs to intergrate the camera with LabView. What's the most cost/time efficient to accomplish the timing of microsope video acquisition with existing labview software? Is there a camera we can buy that will basically work DAQ-Vision right out of the box? Is it challenging to write a LabView driver for the EZ2 that we borrowed?

Thanks a bunch!

[Bob_Schor]

There are many cameras that work with IMAQdx in LabVIEW Vision.  I'm not familiar with the camera you are using, but I've used both USB WebCams (Logitech, Microsoft) and cameras using TCP/IP (Axis, Basler) with IMAQdx.  Surely someone makes a camera that can plug into a microscope ...

Bob Schor

[natasftw]

As you've got a typo in the manufacturres name, I'd also want to check the model.  Photometrics lists the EZ model and the ES2.  Which of these are you looking at?  I don't see an EZ2.

It looks like either way you have a firewire bus.  You'll want IMAQdx installed.  With that, do you see the camera in MAX? Here's the firewire help: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/C2F87C32F5627A0A862569E5006C17C4

Is your camera compliant with the required standards?  Can you use it with the software that came with it successfully?

If all of that leaves you incompatible, you'll want to make wrapper VIs.  Use a Call Library Function Node for each DLL call they have.  Save the VIs.  Then, use those to handle the acquisition moving forward