ISSI PSP-CCD-C, PSP-CCD-M User Manual

Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc.

2-megapixel CCD Camera

(Product ID: PSP-CCD-C, PSP-CCD-M)

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PSP-CCD Features and Specifications

Description

The PSP-CCD is a 2-megapixel CCD camera d esigned to operate within a PS P system.
The camera is small and lightweight at 210g allowing for an array of cameras to be mounted in a
tight place for larger s cale mod els and app lication s. The camera com es in two st yles, one with a
color chip and one with a monochrome chip. The color camera is used in Binary PSP and
particle shadow velocimetry applications whereas the monochrome version is used in
monochrome PSP or S3F applications. One approach that allows binar y pressure sensitive paint
data to be acquired using a single camera involves the use of a color camera (PSP-CCD-C).
Rather than use optical filters in front of the camera lens, the filtering is applied on the chip using
a standard Ba yer fil ter . In t he c as e of Bi nary FIB, the signal ch an nel is acq u ired on th e red p ixels
and the reference channel is acquired on the green pixels. All images are acquired through a
single camera and lens and this process minimizes image alignment errors. This single chip
system also accomplishes a second goal, all data is acquired simultaneously, and thus the
stability of the illumination source is a less significant issue. The major drawback of this
approach is the loss of spatial resolution. In a color chip, only ¼ of the pix els are sen siti ve to t he
signal channel (red pixels) on the standard Bayer filter. Despite the loss of spatial resolution, the
color camera approa ch p rodu ces excel lent resu lts at low s peeds. T he no rmal fram e rat e is 35 fps
but can operate at 44 fps in overclock mode. Th e camera features a soft wa re t ri g ger an d ex t ern al
TTL trigger over BNC.

Features

• Built-in pulse generator

• Gigabit Ethernet LAN

• Programmable external trigger

• Software trigger programmable and pulse width

• Internal/External exposure control

• Long integration up to 16 seconds

• Auto/programmable iris

• Built-in IR blocking filter

• Compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP both 32- and 64-bit

Specifications

Resolution .........................................................1608 x 1208

Max Frame Rate (normal/overclock) ................... 35/44 FPS

Pixel Size ................................................ 7.4 µm by 7.4 µm

Dynamic ra nge ............................................................ 12-bit

Maximum Signal-to-Noise Ratio ................................ 60 db

Exposure .................................................5-µs global shutter

Trigger in ...................................................................... TTL

Exposure out ......................................... TTL/Programmable

Interface ..................................................... Gigabit Ethernet

Lens ........................................................................ c-mount

Sensor .................................................................. 2/3” CCD

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Operating Temperature ................................ -40 ˚C to 85 ˚C

Weight ......................................................................... 210g

Size ........................................................... 46 x 46 x 66 mm

Spectral plot s of the array

Spectral plot of IR Blocking filter in the camera

Software Installation

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The PSP-CCD operates with ProAcquire GigE. The software is compiled for 32- and 64­bit Window operating systems XP, Vista and 7. Locate the appropriate installation file to begin
installation.

The setup page will open and prompt the user to continue with the installation.

The setup will next open and display the license agreement for the software.

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Navigate to the destination where the software will be stored on the computer and proceed with
the installation.

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The eBUS driver installation tool will open and give the option to install the eBUS driver. The
driver will be installed on the network interface card on the computer. If the eBUS driver is
already installed (as pictured below) select the action ‘Do Nothing’ and close the window. If it is
not yet installed, the ‘Current Driver’ will be the ‘Manufacturer Driver’ and the ‘Install eBUS
Driver’ should be chosen for action.

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Once installation is complete, reboot the computer.

Setting up the NIC

To get the fastest p erformance fro m the camera,
use a Cat6 Ethernet cable and a comput er with a
Gigabit Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC).
Gigabit Ethernet has a maximum data transfer
rate of 1 gigabit per second while fast Ethernet
(FE) is limited to 100 megabits per second.
Using a computer with a GigE NIC will enable
the camera to collect data at its maximum frame
rate of 35/44 (normal/overclocked) frames per
second. All other Gigabit Ethernet devices
should be disconnected from the computer and
disabled from the network while using the PSP­CCD. To increase the frame rate capability on
the computer and use the full bandwidth of the
NIC, Jumbo frames should be enabled and the
value should be set to the maximum for the
computer. The m axim um values are either 7KB

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or 9KB MTU. Once the computer has been properly configured for the camera, open the
software from the desktop icon to display the GUI.

The network interface card on the computer can be set to either obtain an IP address
automatically from the camera or with a static IP that corresponds to the camera IP address.
When the camera is configured and connected, the IP on the PC will be reset by the software to
match the IP settings of the camera. These settings can be changed to reflect the user
requirements on the PC. To change the IP settings on the computer, navigate to the Local Area
Network connections page on the computer. Select the network connection where the camera is
connected by right-clicking and selecting ‘Properties.’

This will open up the Local Area Connection Properties window. From here, select the Internet
Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) (above left) to open the properties window (above right) for the
IP settings. The IP address can be set to a stat ic IP here t o communicat e via Ethernet with man y
devices. The only fields that need to be filled in are the IP address and the Subnet Mask. The IP
address can be set to user specification. The Subnet Mask should be set to 255.255.255.0.

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Software Interface

Select ‘Connect’ to display the cameras connected to the computer. This will open a new
window and display all cameras currently connected to the computer.

To change the IP add ress of the cam era selected, cl ick the ‘Set IP Add ress…’ button. This will
open a window showing the NIC Configuration and the GigE Vision Device IP Configuration.

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The NIC Configuration displays the MAC
Address, IP Address, Subnet Mask and
Default Gateway of the computer’s network
interface card wh ere the camera is con nected.
The GigE Vision Device IP Configuration
shows the same parameters on the camera
connected. The camera IP address, Subnet
Mask and Default Gateway can be changed
from this window. The IP Address of the
camera should match that of the computer
with the exception of the fourth number,
which should be different form the
computer’s IP Address. For examp le, if the
computer’s IP Address was set to

192.168.0.15, the camera should be set to

192.168.0.10. The Subnet Mask and the
Default Gateway should match that of the
computer. Press ‘OK’ to accept the new

settings. The camera will maintain the
network configuration assigned to it unless the user switches the NIC to acquire IP address
dynamically. In this case, the camer a will revert back to its fact ory network set tings. To search
for a camera on the network with unknown network settings, select the ‘Show unreachable GigE
Vision Devices’ box.

Select the camera to ope n the connection with the GUI. The GUI will show all camera control
buttons as active once the camera has been connected.

The GUI will also display the features of the camera connected under ‘Camera Info’ and the
status of the camera. The ‘Probe’ will display the current intensity value in counts (on an 8- (28)
or 12-bit (212) scale depending on which is selected) and the x- and y-location on the array. This
should be utilized in preview mode when setting the exposure and iris for the experiment.

The toolbar at the top of the GUI contains the control features for the camera. Connect and
disconnect cameras v ia the button. The cam era can be set up to be ex ternally triggered here as
well. By selecting ‘Ext. Trig’ the ‘Pulse width’ box will become useable. Externally triggering

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the camera alone allows an external TT L input to trigger the exposure to start but the exposure
time is still set in the software. By enabling ‘Pulse width,’ the external device also sets the
exposure time, and therefore the rep-rate of the camera. ‘Preview’ displays a live preview of
what the camera sees using the settings
displayed. ‘Save…’ will open the
‘Image Saving Options’ window which
is where the file type, path and name
are set. ‘Start Capture’ will then
capture X number of images at the
prescribed settings. In external trigger mode, the camera will wait for an external TTL level (3­5V) trigger to start image acquisition. The memory allo cation and number of fr ames (images)
captured is also displayed on this toolbar as a reference.

There are two acquisition modes for the camera. Intensity mode, also known as radiometric
mode captures a s ingle image per t rigger. Lifeti me mode acquires tw o images sequentially per
pulse of the illumination source. Lifetime data acquisition is described in more detail in
references on www.psp-tsp.com.

The ‘Image Saving Options’ window sets the file save location and the name of the saved files.

The number of frames to be captured
per trigger (software star t or external
trigger) is also set here. If using the
color camera, the im ages can be s plit
by color plane by selecting the
option. For monochrome cameras
do not choose this option. The
camera can also blank triggers if
needed by only saving one of every
X images captured.

The files can be saved in
three formats. TIFF files are
compatible with ISSI ProImage and
OMS-Lite for post processing. RGB
bitmaps and binary files can also be
saved. ‘Memory’ is a faster way to
store captured images. The PSP­CCD can stream images at 930
Mbit/s. To prev ent dropping frames,
this mode can be us ed to temporarily
capture images onto the RAM on the

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computer with a speed ~10 Gbit /s (for DDR3-1000 RAM
modules). Memory mode can also be used to capture from two
or more cameras simultaneously to one PC. In this case, all
cameras should be co nnected to separate Gigabit network
adapters. To use control multiple cameras on one
computer, multiple instances of ProAcquire can be run at
once. Each camera is run through its own ProAcquire
window. Memory mode also serves as a preview for a
series of camera shot s, to track changes t o the targ et in the
preview window without saving frames in separate
images. For lifetime measurements, the two gates can be compared to one another using
memory mode. Images stored in the RAM can be displayed in the viewing window on the GUI.
Move the slider labeled ‘In Memory’ to display the images. To save all images stored in the
RAM using Memory mode, select ‘Save all from RAM’ under the settings tab.
Camera settings can be accessed in the ‘Settings’ tab of the toolbar.

‘Fashion Image’ allows for the array to be displayed in the preview window as an RGB image
(Bayer) or the individual color planes can be viewed. These can be displayed in several different
lookup tables to help visualize the intensity gradients.

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In ‘Sensor Settings,’ the sensor can be operated in single tap or two tap mode. The array will
scan faster in two-t ap mode than single-tap however, a line where the arr ay is split between the
two taps will be visible in the images saved. The array can be operated in two speeds, Normal
and Overclocked. Normal speed has a maximum frame rate of 35 fps, while overclocked can
frame at 44 fps. The image depth can be set to eith er 8-bit or 12-bit. The camera i s nominall y
12-bit. Binning can also be done from here but should only be done on m onochrome cameras.
NEVER use pixel binning on a color camera!

The PSP-CCD also has a built-in pulse generator. Values for period (inverse of frequ ency) and
pulse width are entered and displayed in milliseconds (ms) or microseconds (µs). The number of
pulses the pulse generator puts out can also be set here. Entering a value of 0 will pulse the
generator continuously until stopped. To begin sending pulses, click ‘Start.’
To send pulses out to external devices or the camera trigger itself, the Out1 (labeled on the cable
as ‘Strobe’) needs to be set to ‘PulseGenerator’ in the ‘Options’ pull-down menu.

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To use the pulse generator to trigger the camera itself, connect the Strobe1 output (which has
now been changed to output the Pulse Generator signals) to the Trigger input via a BNC
connector. The image above shows the trigger connected over a BNC T which also splits the
signal and also sends it out to another external instrument as a trigger. An external pulse
generator like the PSG-2 can also be used to externally trigger the camera.

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The event monitor can also be accessed from the sett ings tab to track th e camera events i n case
of errors in operation.

License Activation Procedure

Open ProAcquire GigE 32/64-bit version, click About menu, and choose License update.

Enter your product key here and press Update License button.

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Make sure the camera has an internet connection, after 2-3 seconds you will see this message.

Now you can start to work with camera.

The license information can be found in About -> About ProAcquire GigE.

In this example, the software can work with cameras with s/n 28091 and 28090.

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Export Disclaimer:

Any and all underlying information and technology contained in this document may be subject to
U.S. export controls, including the Export Administration Act (50 U.S.C. Appx. §§ 2401 et seq. )
and the Export Administration Regulations ("EAR", 50 C.F.R. Parts 730-774), and may be
subject to export or import regulations in other countries. You are responsible for complying
with all trade regulations and laws both foreign and domestic. Except as authorized by law or
distributor agreement with ISSI, you agree and warrant not to export or re-export the information
to any country, or to any person, entity, or end-user subject to U.S. export controls, including
without limitation persons or entities listed on the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of
Export Administration's Denied Parties List and the U.S. Department of Treasury's Specially
Designated Nationals. You further represent and warrant that no U.S. federal agency has
suspended, revoked, or denied your export privileges.

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