IMAQ USB on Windows Vista

[LVO]

I have made a commercial software that works with images received from a USB camera by means of vision library functions (LabVIEW 8.5 FDS, Vision 8.5). I have tested that software on several PCs and notebooks, which have Windows XP Professional installed and everything works fine. But on Windows Vista there an error message appears (IMAQ Vision: (Hex 0xBFF60488) Minimum coverage value should be greater than zero.). It seems that NI IMAQ USB drivers do not work with Windows Vista. How does it look like with NI IMAQ USB driver support on Windows Vista OS? Thank you!

[MrJackHamilton]

This may be a stretch..but I had an odd problem with IMAQ on WinXP with regards to negative pixel values for an image. I did not get the error on Win2K or Millenumum...But WinXP threw this error immediately.

When I changed my IMAQ code - the problem went away. Something to do with the Video driver in Vista I surmise.

I was writing a bmp to the IMAQ image on code start up as a splash screen - it had negative values.

Regards

Jack Hamilton

[iRish]

Hi LVO.

IMAQ for USB requires NI-Vision to be installed, and NI-Vision 8.2.1 later should work on Vista.  What camera are you using?  Does is use DirectShow filter? Which version of Vista do you have?

I will keep looking into this for you!

Regards,

[LSoft]

Dear iRish!

On target computer I have installed NI-Vision 8.5, NI-Vision 8.5 Run-Time Engine.

I am using this camera: http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/usb-digital-microscope-with-13-m-pixel-resolution-video-clips/ .

I have tested my software on two notebooks with Windows Vista (version 6.0.6000 built 6000), Business and Enterprise.

I don't know anything about DirectShow filter usage. How should I find it out?

On both notebook was the same error message (-1074396024).

Please, give me some advice.

Thank you very much, best regards, Libor.

[Wes_P]

Hi Libor,

You should not have to specify which DirectShow filter to use--this should be done automatically.  There may still be some issues since many things are different between Vista and XP.  There is a VI that you can use to bring in camera attributes to LabVIEW.  I would recommend using this.  Then you will be able to look at the camera information and see if there is a recommended filter, and work from there.  The VI should be located at the following directory:

Functions»Vision and Motion»IMAQ USB»IMAQ USB PropertyPage.vi. 

This should give us more information about what to do next--specifically which DirectShow filters are compatible with the camera.

Wes P
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[AnthonV]

Hi, I am getting the same error code on a XP system.  I developed a IMAQ USB application on a different XP box with 8.5.  I created an installer and installed the application on the target machine.  I also had to manually copy the IMAQDirectShow dlls to windows/system32 to make it run (in future I will include this in the installer). 

Unfortunately the IMAQ Init function returns the same Minimum Coverage error as reported above.  Any ideas??

[LSoft]

If you have Vision Development Module CD, let it perform the autorun and try to install Vision LabVIEW 8.5 Support on custommer PC. After that, install usb_IMAQ_installer_setup.exe again. Tell me then, if that helps.

Message Edited by LSoft on 04-04-2008 01:00 PM

[AnthonV]

Yes this worked thanks.  Now I just need to know how to include the whole Vision and Vision Acquisition CD's into the self-installer.  Won't this be a problem (and won't it create a huge installer for a very simple app)?  Is the problem that the IMAQ USB installer does not want to install without Vision already installed on the PC?  If so maybe this prerequisite could be removed from the USB installer, or a IMAQ USB run-time version could be supplied?

[Wes_P]

Hi,

The reason that installing Vision support for LabVIEW solved the issue is because the IMAQ for USB driver is dependent on Vision to operate.  You will need to install Vision support for LabVIEW on any computer that you plan to run the IMAQ for USB driver on.  The information page for the IMAQ for USB driver contains information about system requirements, and other useful information.

Wes P
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[AnthonV]

Thanks for the link - this pointed me to this link which states that I should not need to install Vision to get the exe to run.  Only the vision run-time engine is required (which was installed as part of the installer).  I will follow the procedure in the Knowledge Base on a clean PC and see if it is successful this time round.