labcams 0.2

# labcams

A package for video acquisition and automation of experimens, uses separate processes to record and store data.

Supported cameras - [see instructions here](https://bitbucket.org/jpcouto/labcams):

## Usage

Open a terminal and type labcams -h for help.

The first time you run labcams it will create a folder in the user home directory where the default preference file is stored.

## Configuration files:

Configuration files ensure you always use the same parameters during your experiments.

The configuration files are simple json files. There are 2 parts to the files.

1. cams - camera descriptions - each camera has a section to store acquisition and recording parameters.

Available camera drivers:

• PCO - install pco.sdk

• AVT - install Vimba SDK and pymba

• QImaging

• pointgrey - FLIR cameras - install Spinnaker

• openCV - webcams and so on

Each camera has its own parameters, there are some parameters that are common to all:

• recorder - the type of recorder tiff ffmpeg opencv binary

• haccel - nvidia or intel for use with ffmpeg for compression.

NOTE: You need to get ffmpeg compiled with NVENC from [here](https://developer.nvidia.com/ffmpeg) - precompiled versions are avaliable. Make sure to have python recognize it in the path (using for example which ffmpeg to confirm from git bash)/

NOTE To use intel acceleration you need to download the [mediaSDK](https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/media-sdk.html).

2. general parameters to control the remote communication ports and general gui or recording parameters.

• recorder_frames_per_file number of frames per file

• recorder_path the path of the recorder, how to handle substitutions - needs more info.

3. Aditional parameters:

• ‘CamStimTrigger’ - controls the arduino camera trigger, see the duino examples folder.

### UDP and ZMQ:

labcams can listen for UDP or ZMQ commands.

To configure use the command "server":"udp" in the end of the config file.

The port can be configured with "server_port":9999

The UDP commands are:

• Set the experiment name expname=EXPERIMENT_NAME

• Software trigger the cameras softtrigger=1 (multiple cameras are not in sync)

• Hardware trigger mode and save trigger=1

• Start/stop saving manualsave=1

• Add a message to the log log=MESSAGE

• Quit quit

Home-page: https://bitbucket.org/jpcouto/labcams Author: Joao Couto Author-email: [e-mail] License: GPL Description: # labcams

A package for video acquisition and automation of experimens, uses separate processes to record and store data.

Supported cameras - [see instructions here](https://bitbucket.org/jpcouto/labcams):

## Usage

Open a terminal and type labcams -h for help.

The first time you run labcams it will create a folder in the user home directory where the default preference file is stored.

## Configuration files:

Configuration files ensure you always use the same parameters during your experiments.

The configuration files are simple json files. There are 2 parts to the files.

1. cams - camera descriptions - each camera has a section to store acquisition and recording parameters.

Available camera drivers:

• PCO - install pco.sdk

• AVT - install Vimba SDK and pymba

• QImaging

• pointgrey - FLIR cameras - install Spinnaker

• openCV - webcams and so on

Each camera has its own parameters, there are some parameters that are common to all:

• recorder - the type of recorder tiff ffmpeg opencv binary

• haccel - nvidia or intel for use with ffmpeg for compression.

NOTE: You need to get ffmpeg compiled with NVENC from [here](https://developer.nvidia.com/ffmpeg) - precompiled versions are avaliable. Make sure to have python recognize it in the path (using for example which ffmpeg to confirm from git bash)/

NOTE To use intel acceleration you need to download the [mediaSDK](https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/media-sdk.html).

2. general parameters to control the remote communication ports and general gui or recording parameters.

• recorder_frames_per_file number of frames per file

• recorder_path the path of the recorder, how to handle substitutions - needs more info.

3. Aditional parameters:

• ‘CamStimTrigger’ - controls the arduino camera trigger, see the duino examples folder.

### UDP and ZMQ:

labcams can listen for UDP or ZMQ commands.

To configure use the command "server":"udp" in the end of the config file.

The port can be configured with "server_port":9999

The UDP commands are:

• Set the experiment name expname=EXPERIMENT_NAME

• Software trigger the cameras softtrigger=1 (multiple cameras are not in sync)

• Hardware trigger mode and save trigger=1

• Start/stop saving manualsave=1

• Add a message to the log log=MESSAGE

• Quit quit

Platform: UNKNOWN