National Instruments Frame Grabbers Family

The National Instruments Frame Grabbers family contains devices for PXI, PXI Express, PCI, and PCI Express, allowing users to link to industry-standard camera buses, such as Camera Link, GigE Vision, and USB3 Vision. These devices have 1-4 ports. Certain devices have Power over Ethernet (PoE) or Power over Camera Link. Frame Grabbers are ideal for scientific imaging and machine vision applications, involving high data throughput, high-resolution, and/or high-speed digital imagining.

There are also Frame Grabbers with a user-programmable FPGA, which has a prebuilt FPGA personality known as Vision RIO. This turnkey IP set enables the user to utilize the benefits of FPGA-enabled I/O and does not require programming the FPGA. Therefore, users can configure a queue of pulses, set line states, and allow hardware-timed IEEE 1588 to deliver a dependable, hardware-timed process of synchronizing I/O with visually examined parts.

With NI Frame Grabbers, users can additionally use the Vision Development Module, which has hundreds of image processing algorithms and acquisition features for vision application requirements. Several of the features of the Vision Development Module include unlimited customizability, the capability to choose between LabVIEW, C/C++, or LabWindows/CVI for programming, enormous parallelism, the capability to create high-performance solutions, and it does not require previous FPGA knowledge. Another option is to use the NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection (AI) software for quicker creation and easier maintenance.

One of the products in the National Instruments Frame Grabber family is the NI-1483, which is a Camera Link Adaptor Module for FlexRIO. This device has a Xilinx Kintex-7 user-programmable FPGA. The NI 1483 allows for FPGA image processing for FlexRIO systems and can be used in conjunction with a PXI FPGA Module for FlexRIO for custom image assessment. Additionally, the PCIe-8237 NI PCIe Frame Grabber has a useful feature which enables the device for RTSI communication to external instruments. This model also has an FPGA-enabled I/O, a Xilinx Spartan-6 user-programmable FPGA, and is PCI-Express x4 Gen 1.1. In addition, there is the PXIe-7975 with hardware triggering and synchronization, a fastening screw, a Xilinx Kintex-7 user-programmable FPGA, and FPGA-enabled I/O. The NI Frame Grabber FPGAs can be used for high-speed sorting. The user can utilize the FPGA to transmit pulses to an actuator that will eject or sort parts as they pass.

Several of the Frame Grabbers are obsolete, such as the PCI-1405, PCI-1409, PCI-1411, PCI-1424, but these devices are still available for purchase at Apex Waves.