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Matrox GigE Vision tools


Besides general utilities (such as Matrox Intellicam and the MILConfig utility), the Matrox GigE Vision driver comes with the Matrox Capture Assistant utility and the Matrox GigE Vision discovery service.

Matrox Capture Assistant

Matrox Capture Assistant is a utility that allows you to rapidly test and evaluate the performance of virtually any GigE Vision-compliant camera (or other device) using the Matrox GigE Vision driver. You can also use the utility to configure Gigabit Ethernet network adapter settings and specific MIL GigE Vision configuration settings. You can launch the Matrox Capture Assistant utility from the MIL Control Center. Note that, for the Matrox Capture Assistant utility to function, the Matrox GigE Vision discovery service must be running.

This utility has four tabs:

  • Acquisition Devices. Lists all detected GigE Vision-compliant cameras connected to all the network adapters installed in your computer. It also provides the starting point for you to select each of these cameras, allocate/free a digitizer for the selected camera, start or stop capturing images, browse the selected camera's features, send a software trigger, control the default display, save the last grabbed image, and list the camera's capabilities. You can view and change camera and network adapter information (such as, setting the IP address, packet size, inter-packet delay, and the user-defined name of your camera), view and change acquisition properties, and view acquisition statistics.

  • Network Connections. Lists all functioning network adapters installed in your computer and allows you to configure the multiple network adapters in your computer to static IP mode (or point-to-point connection mode) or DHCP mode (or corporate network mode). Note that if your GigE Vision-compliant cameras are connected to a network with a DHCP server, you must set your network adapters connected to these cameras to corporate network mode. Whereas, if your GigE Vision-compliant cameras do not obtain their IP addresses from a DHCP server, you must set your network adapters to point-to-point connection mode.

  • System Configuration. Allows you to control specific connection settings for a MIL GigE Vision system.

  • Troubleshooting. Allows you to find your camera using its MAC address, and then set the camera's IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway.

Matrox GigE Vision discovery service

The Matrox GigE Vision discovery service allows your MIL application and the Matrox Capture Assistant utility to automatically detect when GigE Vision-compliant cameras are added to or removed from your network. The service is enabled by default when you install the Matrox GigE Vision driver. To disable or re-enable the service, launch the MILConfig utility. Then, select the Boards GigE Vision item from the tree structure in the presented interface, click on the Use Camera Discovery Service check box in the presented page, and click on the Apply button. You cannot launch the Matrox Capture Assistant utility unless the service is running.

While the service is running, your MIL application can execute a hook-handler function whenever a GigE Vision-compliant camera is added to or removed from your network (using MsysHookFunction() with M_CAMERA_PRESENT).

While the service is not running, your MIL application will only detect which GigE Vision-compliant cameras are on your network at the moment you allocate a MIL GigE Vision system. To detect the addition of GigE Vision-compliant cameras on your network, you must deallocate and reallocate the MIL GigE Vision system. To detect the removal of a GigE Vision-compliant camera without reallocating the MIL GigE Vision system, you must have already allocated a digitizer for the camera and attached a hook-handler function to the camera presence event (using MdigHookFunction() with M_CAMERA_PRESENT).