ams QG000113 NanEye Fiber Optic Box User Guide
- June 5, 2024
- ams
Table of Contents
ams QG000113 NanEye Fiber Optic Box
Out of the Box
General
NanEye Fiber Optic Box 2.0 is a fully embedded all in one image processing
unit that interfaces the NanEye® micro camera head signals and provides an
output of 1080p/60 format HDMI video signal which can be directly plugged to a
HDMI compatible monitor, which in this mode no additional PC or image
processing is required. The USB3 interface allows the connection to the NanEye
Viewer running on a PC to get access to the sensor’s raw images and control
settings. The demo kit includes a fiber light source, which provides light to
the tip of the NanEye® Sensor probe via a 0.5 mm plastic optic fiber. The
fiber and NanEye® camera are housed in a 2.3 mm diameter of 1 m cable length
that can be plugged and unplugged easily from the processing and illumination
unit. The illumination intensity is adjustable by a manual dial. The unit is
supplied by 12 V DC. It can interface to any standard monitor with HDMI input.
The main body of the demo kit measures only 17 cm x 17 cm x 5.6 cm and
provides all necessary video processing and display driving plus the
adjustable illumination.
Benefits
- Easy to use plug and play solution
- Stand alone video output via HDMI (no PC required)
- High quality image output
- All in one eval kit with illumination
- Raw image data access and sensor control via USB3 and NanEye viewer
Features
- Supports up to 2 NanEye® 2D
- Integrated adjustabel fiber light source
- HDMI 1080p/60 video output
- USB3 PC interface to NanEye viewer
- Image processing, correction and enhancements
NanEye Fiber Optic Box 2.0 Description
- Front Side
- LEMO Connector
- 2 x NanEye_2D
- 1 x High-power LED current source
- 1 x LEMO F1 connector for internal high power fiber optic light source
- JST Connectors
- 2 x NanEye_2D
- 1 x Current source up to 22.7 mA (Channel 1)
- Rotary Switch
- Light mode and intensity control
- Dual-Color Status LED
- Rear Side
- HDMI Output
- 1080P60 to display NanEye at LEMO
- No additional PC needed
- USB3.0
- Display NanEye channel 1&2 with NanEye Viewer software
- Adjust light intensity of distal LED ring or fiber optic light source
- Adjust image processing
- Power Supply
- 12 V DC, 1.5 A minimum
Plug and Play
Connect Hardware
Recommended Equipment
The following image shows the necessary equipment for a direct connection to a
monitor.
Recommended Connection
- Firstly connect the NanEye, NanEye fiber or NanEye LED module to the box
- Then connect the box to the monitor using a HDMI cable
- Plug in the 12 V power adapter and wait for the Fiber Box to power up
Attention
Please be aware to not connect NanEye Fiber and the NanEye+LED simultaneously.
When it comes to the sensor connections, they share the same hardware input,
therefore if connected at the same time, may cause irreversible damage. This
situation applies for Plug & Play mode as well as when using NanEye Viewer
through USB3 connection.
Fiber Optic Box Operation
- Dual-Color Status LED
- Constant Green → Status ok, no sensor connected, test pattern output via HDMI
- Blinking Green → Sensor data transmission
- Yellow → (pulse > 1 second), at least one error during sensor data decoding detected
- Rotary Switch
- Push Button
- Select high-power fiber optic light source → White balance optimized for fiber light color temp
- Select current source LED ring → White balance optimized for LED ring color temp
- All off → Neutral color temp, no tuning of white balancing
- Rotate
- Adjusts light intensity
Image Viewing
The following image shows the Fiber Optic Box layout on the Monitor. The
coloured screensaver represents the mode when there is no NanEye module or
fiber module connected, where the status LED is constant green.
Operation with PC
Software Installation
This section describes how to install the NanEye Viewer software. NanEye
Viewer is compatible with Windows XP, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Please download the
software from https://download.ams.com/CMOS-IMAGE-SENSORS. The FGPA files
can be found in the C:\ProgramData\ams\NanEye Viewer\Fpga Files folder, after
installing the viewer. For the boards to be recognized in the Windows
Operative System, a specific driver is required which is installed with the
NanEye Viewer. The drivers are located in Program Data/ams/NanEye
Viewer/driver.
For a correct installation, please perform the following steps:
- Start the setup-NanEye Viewer_Vx.x.x.x.exe:
- Choose the most suitable language between the following options:
- English/Japanese/Korean
- Select the installation folder.
- Select the media folder (where correction masks, screenshots and videos will be saved).
- Installs the drivers for all the boards.
- Installation completed.
Computer Connection with NanEye Viewer
Recommended Equipment
The following image shows the necessary equipment for a direct connection to a
PC.
Recommended Connection
Please take the following steps to perform the correct connection:
- Please confirm that the NanEye Viewer software has been correctly installed, refer to section 3.1
- Plug the USB3 type A cable to the Fiber Optic Box and the PC
- Plug in the 12V power adapter and wait for the Fiber Box to power up
- Wait for it to be automatically recognized. Please check on the Device Manager if your device is recognized as Cypress FX3 USB StreamerExample Device as shown in Figure 12
Installing FX3 Driver Manually
If the driver is not correctly installed after installing NanEye Viewer,
please go to:
- Program Files\ams\NanEye Viewer vX.X.X.X\driver\FX3_Driver
Then, according to the operating system, run the respective Drive Package Installer (dpinst_x86/x64).
How to Debug USB3 Board
If the NanEye Viewer does not run, this section can help to debug the board.
When the viewer is installed, inside the folder Program Files\ams\NanEye
Viewer vX.X.X.X\application\debug\Usb3, are included programs that can be used
to debug occurring issues. In order to reprogram the FPGA, start FPGA
Configuration Utility (Template), following the instructions on that window
and using the bit file (for instance, fob_fpga.bin) that can be found at
C:\ProgramData\ams\NanEye Viewer\Fpga Files\NanEye_USB3. When this task is
completed, the information is displayed as in the image 13. This means that
the FPGA is programming correctly.
Start the Application
NanEye Viewer
General Description
NanEye Viewer is a software that allows the user to grab data from the sensors
and evaluate the board.
The Viewer Software has the following features:
- Possibility to save directly to .avi streams of the processed image, or save the raw data in the awvideo format;
- Possibility to save snapshots in PNG and in PGM (saving the 10 bit raw data);
- Possibility to display the pixel graphic;
- Dynamic gain, offset and exposure switching;
- Possibility to acquire black and white gain masks;
- Possibility to apply the algorithm automatic exposure control;
- Possibility to adjust white balance automatically;
This software also contains some image processing algorithms:
- Colour Reconstruction;
- Adjust colour saturation;
- Gamma Correction (only for colour version);
- Adjust brightness.
Choosing the Sensor
If the board is correctly recognised, as shown in the previously section, then
the NanEye Viewer can be started choosing the Sensor, Board and Viewer,
following the suitable combination available on Figure 14. If the board is not
recognised correctly please check section 3.
Depending if the user chooses NanEye Viewer or Stereo Viewer, is possible to choose one or both sensors, respectively.
Interface Description
After choosing Load Default Configuration, the Viewer interface is displayed
as exemplified in Figure 17.
Figure 18 shows the description of each NanEye Viewer interface sections
(layout may change pending on software version).
From left to right:
- Play/Stop Grabbing Images;
- Record Videos;
- Take Snapshots;
- Menu More Options (figure 20).
The pixel intensity can be analyzed through the histogram in figure 21,
choosing Pixel Graphic from More Options menu
When the user selects record a video, a message is displayed (figure 22) to choose Raw Images or Processed Images.
Processed Video:
- Saves in AVI format;
- Recommendation: use VLC program to open it.
Raw Video:
- Saves in awvideo format;
- Saves raw 10 bit pixels.
To watch the raw video, in awvideo format, the user can use the AwVideo
Visualizer. Please download the software from https://download.ams.com/CMOS-
IMAGE-SENSORS.
The videos are saved in user data folder (the folder chosen when installing
the viewer) in the Videos folder.
When saving a snapshot, it will save the Raw Image (10 bits) as it comes from
the sensor and also the Processed Image (the image as the user see on your
screen, after all the algorithms applied).
Processed Image:
- PNG format;
- 24 bits per pixel.
Raw Image:
- PGM format;
- 10 bit raw pixels.
The images are saved in user data folder (the folder chosen when installing the viewer) in the Snapshots folder. It saves as Raw_Sen[0] for the Raw Image and as Processed_Sen[0] to the Processed Image. The “0” is the sensor ID.