Serial Interface

The NI PCIe-1437 provides serial communication to and from the camera through two LVDS pairs in the Camera Link cable. All Camera Link serial communication uses one start bit, one stop bit, no parity, and no hardware handshaking.

The NI PCIe-1437 supports all baud rates specified by the Camera Link specification. Refer to the Specifications for a list of baud rates that the NI PCIe-1437 supports.

You can use the serial interface interactively with MAX, clsercon.exe, or a manufacturer supplied camera control utility, or programmatically with LabVIEW, C, or .NET.

Interactively:
  • MAX—Use MAX with a camera file containing preprogrammed commands. When an acquisition is initiated, the commands are sent to the camera.
  • clsercon.exe—Use the National Instruments terminal emulator for Camera Link, clsercon.exe, if a camera file with preprogrammed serial commands does not exist for your camera. With clsercon.exe, you can still communicate serially with your camera. Access clsercon.exe from the <NI-IMAQ>\bin directory, where <NI-IMAQ> is the location where NI-IMAQ is installed. This is typically in the same location where other National Instruments software is installed (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\NI-IMAQ or C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI-IMAQ)
  • Manufacturer Supplied Camera Control Utility—Camera manufacturers who are compliant with the Camera Link 1.1 or later specification provide a camera control utility which sends the appropriate serial commands for configuring your camera through the device serial port.
Programmatically:
  • LabVIEW—Use the serial interface programmatically, through calls to the NI-IMAQ driver using the IMAQ Serial Write VI and IMAQ Serial Read VI.
  • C—Use the serial interface programmatically, through calls to the NI-IMAQ driver using the imgSessionSerialRead and imgSessionSerialWrite functions.
  • .NET—Use the serial interface programmatically, through calls to the NI-IMAQ driver using the ImaqSerialConnection class.
Note clsercon.exe and all programmatic connection methods provide direct manual access of the NI PCIe-1437 serial port, and are not required for most users.

National Instruments also fully supports the recommended serial API described in the Camera Link Specification. This specification is available on the Automated Imaging Association (AIA) website at www.visiononline.org.