Does Bonsai support ImagingSource USB3.0 video cameras?

[Evgeny Resnik]

Hi guys,
Does anybody have an experience with using Bonsai together with USB3.0 video cameras from the ImagingSource?
Does Bonsai support cameras from this vendor at all?

Something like this:
http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_US/products/cameras/usb-cmos-ccd-color/dfk23ux236/


Thanks!
Best,
Evgeny

[goncaloclopes]

Hi Evgeny and welcome to the forums!

I actually never used a video camera from ImagingSource. They look interesting though.

My first approach would be to see if they provide DirectShow filter drivers in their install package. If they support DirectShow, then VideoCaptureDevice from the Bonsai.Video package should be able to handle it right away.

If not and anyone feels like integrating it the rough steps would be:

1. Install their SDK
2. Check if they have a C# API (it looks like they do)
3. Check their code samples for the API
4. Make a custom Bonsai source (see here and an example here - you can ignore everything until the lock and ideally just copy/paste the sample code inside the Task)

If they provide good examples, it shouldn't be exceedingly difficult. Right now we don't have access to an ImagingSource camera, so it would be hard for us to test it at the moment...

Hope this helps.

[Evgeny Resnik]

Hi Goncalo,

First of all, thanks a lot for your quick and detailed responses, it really helps. I'v found a lot of useful info while reading through these forums.

As soon as the ImagingSource camera arrives i will try it out and report the outcome here.
Given a lack of experience of programming in Python, in case of troubles i will just replace that camera with the one from PointGrey.

By the way, does even such a cheap PointGrey camera, like Blackfly 0.5 MP Color USB3, provide metadata (frame counter and so on) and TTL out,
that can be used for a sync with the OpenEphys?

Did anybody experience problem with powering this camera if connected to a laptop USB3.0?

Thanks!

Best,
Evgeny

[goncaloclopes]

I believe the basic metadata info (i.e. frame counter, etc) is shared across all PG camera models, as it is part of their unified SDK interface (FlyCapture).

Regarding the TTL output, although I've never used a Blackfly myself, a brief inspection of the Blackfly USB 3.0 Getting Started shows that they come with an opto-isolated GPIO output (3.3V TTL) so it should be possible to configure them for shutter TTL output through FlyCapture.

It seems they only have opto-isolated output pins though, which means that to get a correct signal out you will need to use a pull up resistor to connect it to an external voltage source. There is a diagram of the circuit on PG website.

Hope this helps.

[Evgeny Resnik]

Great, thanks for the info!

[Evgeny Resnik]

Great, thanks for the info!



On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 2:04:09 PM UTC+1, goncaloclopes wrote:

[Nacho Sanguinetti]

Hey Guys, 

Actually I tried imagingsource cameras with Bonsai. The capture was plug and play, but It was only the image i think, not the metadata. 

Best

Nacho

[Evgeny Resnik]

Hey Nacho,
Thanks for the info!
Did you use an USB3.0 or WireFire camera?

evgeny

[Nacho Sanguinetti]

Ok, just checked. It was USB 2.0, and definitely no frame count.