Guppy camera and WDM

Hi all, lately we are developing a vvvv application, and is supposed to use a Guppy camera.Vvvv can enumerate the driver but then camera is not working at all.
That driver are, in fact, something little bit “workaroundly”, is there a way to test it or to know more about it ? we also have the SDK for driver implementation, thank u all in advance :)

i don’t know the guppy but it seems it has a wdm driver:
http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/avt-products/software/direct-firepackage.html

if thats not working you could use their native api and write a vvvv-plugin wrapper. starting from somewhere around here i suppose:
http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/avt-products/software/firepackage.html. access the cameras image and write it to sharedmemory, which can then be read by SharedMemory (EX9.Texture) or (upcomming) SharedMemory (DShow9).

i’ve done this for the IDS usb cameras recently. works like a charm.

Hi joreg and thank u for interest, i’ve already took a look to that, but i’m not a c++ programmer or even .NET, never get involved in it, so i don’t kno whow to start, thought i saw here some snippets, i don’t know how to use it, still, do u have any hints ?

Btw we are realizing an interactive wall for a bar in rome, that is the camera for, how can we buy a license for that ?

Anyway, we’ll be happy t pay someone to realize that or help us to do it, thought i know tha a camera will be needed for testing and maybe you don’t have it, if somebody can help us, is wellcome,and we need it soon :)

hola hierro,

first i’d concentrate on the directshow/wdm driver. it should really work. if not, try to contact the company and tell them about your problem.

else if you’re not into programming it could be a little hard as a first encounter, but basically what you need to do is read through here: HowTo VVVVPlugins. get one of the templates running. next you look for a c#/.net example in the guppy-sdks sample code, get that running. and then take the relevant code of the sample to the plugin.

you can always buy a license here.

winvdig may resolve your problem.

thank u in advance, cn’t try it now, cos i o nt’have camera here, i tried also splitcam, is that somethign similar ? i’ll try, but microsot ohci is not accessible susually for guppy camera, i anybody who can just prepare a project visualstudio or whatevere based on snippets on line , of course paied :)

well dont know if it could help but winvdig solved me many troubles with cams…

first have a look with virtual dub. you have 3 ways to read the camera in vdb capture mode.

if it appears and works in VdB, certain devices may not appear or work with certain softwares, as certain people ( devs) may have a quicktime installed on their system and think that their implementation is alright , but thats on their system…

winvdig is just a driver that allows you to capt your device and make it appears and work correctly.
lets have a try, this has not cost on your system.

it worked for me a couple of time with dv entries not appearing in my list of devices…

but i don t know if it may help you really ;-)

thank u al ot, i’ll try it all, still i need a dirver to work cos installation is in abar, i can’t manage other applications working, cos i’m not there :)

Hi there,

I’m facing the same problem with an AVT Guppy.
I installed the FirePackage provided by AVT.
I installed winvdig.
I do not have the AVT app running at the same time.

…VideoIn still lists my “USB Video Device” only (= my built-in I-Sight; yeah, I’m on a Mac btw). Strange though, since the I-sight would usually appear as “Built-in Isight”.
I know some people have been through this on Max/Jitter, where the I-Sight was always the stream grabbed, no matter how. Same problem here?
Any idea?

Thx
TsS

@TremensS : I got a solution, something i should upload earlier, just being busy, please contact me here and specify the model of ur camera

@ TremensS
The iSight should list as USB Video Device in vvvv, that’s expected behaviour. I wouldn’t recommend the iSight in vvvv anyvvvvay other than for early stage prototyping. Compared to simple cheapo USB Video Grabbers in conjunction with some kind of camera connected, the frame rate just sucks. I’ve found out that the iSight can perform OK after some time when used in a patch, until you mess around with the Video Texture, whereafter the iSight Frame Rate drops again.

Hi, here u have a zip containing an helPatch and 2 DLL, to use it, u should have previously installed the AVT firepackage, I’m using 2.9 version.

Maybe u will need to have installed also .NET stuff onto ur computer, I’ll try to get the source of this DLL soon.

Look, this was my first and unic attempt to write C# code, for sure can be done better, anyway is working on my AVT F-044-NIR.

AVT.zip (12.4 kB)

@hierro

Thanks for posting!
Just opened the help patch and seems to work.
I’ll let you know about its stability later on :)

Cheers anyway!
TsS

Update:
sad news are: seems to work a couple of minutes, after which vvvv quits with an error; then, no way to grab from the camera again, neither from vvvv or even AVT SmartView (“error creating device”).
Strange thing: after quiting, the camera still has green+orange leds on, like while sending frames…
I have to unplug-plug the cam on to get it working again.
Soon I’ll go Unibrain, I guess!

Tell me if you have a idea/fix about that, otherwise just let go. Thanks for your fast help and replies anyways. :)

mmmhh…actually I’m using that DLL for continuos grabbing in a club…so there should be something about settings or hardware.

  • Set correct size for grabbing frame actually is setted up for F044 NIR, not your model i guess

  • Test different grabbing methods using Synch/Asynch methods using higher grabbing interval (try >=40)

  • Make sure the sharedMemory settings are suitable for your camera output, actually that is working on a greyscale interlaced image, what are your camera specs ?

  • Remove all stuff about frame handling, such as texture and so on, test the clean DLL just rendering the sharedMemory stuff

Dunno more now, I wrote that stuff trying to suite for my camera, anyway is strange it quits after a couple of minutes, maybe a memory leak, thought my DLL is running everyday for 10 hours, something more i noticed is this…strange but true, i solved some issues changing firewire cable…try to test everything with a short firewire cable…after some testing i discovered that electric interferences around cable can produce an unknown effects chain, ending with your same scene, vvvv quit and camera grabs…i solved using a pci-card for firewire connecting instead of mainboard built-in firewire port.This solved my issues in vvvv, but maybe is just related to specific ambient where i installed…it tooks a week for me understand it :D

I use a Unibrain too and i tested also other cameras, in my point of view, the best flexibility into vvvv is achieved using UEye camera, especially because joreg wrote a dedicated DLL to handle that camera video stream.

If you don’t need infrared vision also unibrain can be nice and works stable, but if you are looking for infrared, guppy NIR are one of the most “able” camera to see IR, plus AVT cameras deliver a very high quality image, so more precision if needed.

Let me know if u are able to make such testing and please share your ecepriences about different cameras, i’m always interested in it :D