Micro-Manager Device Adapter for IDS Peak cameras

This repository only exists to keep the image.sc forum link alive. This project is transferred to https://github.com/micro-manager/mmCoreAndDevices/tree/main/DeviceAdapters/IDSPeak

Micro-Manager is an application to control microscope hardware, such as cameras. It includes a hardware abstraction layer written in C++ and a user interface written in Java. Micro-Manager needs a translation layer between the driver (written by the manufacturer) and Micro-Manager's C++ backend. This translation layer is called a "Device Adapter" (Micro-Manager has chosen not to call it a "Driver" to distinguish it from the libraries provided by the manufacturers of the devices).

This GitHub repository contains a Device Adapter for IDS cameras. It contains both the already built .dll (mmgr_dal_IDSPeak.dll) and the C++/h files to build it yourself. Instructions can be found below. The Device Adapter was tested with an IDS USB3-3040CP-HQ Rev 2.2 on Windows 10, and not with any other camera or operating system. Although camera model should not matter, there might be assumed default settings that might not be universally present. A different operating system could be more problematic.

Using the precompiled .dll

The following steps will guide you through the process of "installing" the .dll, allowing you to use IDS cameras with Micro-Manager.

1. Clone/download this repository.
2. Download and install "IDS Peak" from the IDS website https://en.ids-imaging.com/downloads.html
3. Copy the "mmgr_dal_IDSPeak.dll" into the root folder of Micro-Manager (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Micro-Manager-2.0")
4. Copy all .dll and .lib files from the IDS Peak software into the root folder of Micro-Manager. The .dll and .lib files can be found in ".\PATH_TO_INSTALL\IDS\ids_peak\comfort_sdk\api\lib\x86_64" (.\PATH_TO_INSTALL is the folder you installed IDS Peak, e.g. "C:\Program Files").
5. Start Micro-Manager and either walk through the Hardware configuration wizard, or load the .cfg file included in this repository. Make sure the camera is plugged into a USB3 port before launching Micro-Manager.

Building the device adapter yourself

More advanced users could build the device adapter themselves, allowing them to tailor the device adapter to their needs. If you just plan to use the default device adapter, there is no benefit to building it yourself. Below you will find a brief walkthrough on building the device adapter.

1. First, follow the Micro-Manager guide on building Micro-Manager (https://micro-manager.org/Building_MM_on_Windows) and on setting up a Visual Studio environment to building device adapters (https://micro-manager.org/Visual_Studio_project_settings_for_device_adapters).
2. In Visual Studio, right-click the project you created in step 1 and choose Properties. Under Configuration Properties > C/C++ > General add the following folder to the Additional Include Directories: ".\ids_peak\comfort_sdk\api\include". You can exit the Properties interface now.
3. Right-click the Project again, and click Add > Existing Item. Browse to ".\ids_peak\comfort_sdk\api\lib\x86_64" and add "ids_peak_comfort_c.lib".
4. Right-click the Header Files tab under your project, and click Add > Existing Item, add the "IDSPeak.h" file.
5. Right-click the Source Files tab under your project, and click Add > Existing Item, add the "IDSPeak.cpp" file.
6. Right-click the Project, and click Build. The .dll will now be build, and should finish without any warnings/errors.
7. The .dll file can now be found in ".\micro-manager\mmCoreAndDevices\build\Debug\x64".
8. Now you have compiled the .dll, follow the steps under "Using the precompiled .dll" to enable Micro-Manager to communicate with IDS cameras.
9. If you want to use the .dll on a PC other than the one used to build the .dll, it is best to set the Solution Configuration to "Release" (that way the other PC doesn't require an install of Microsoft Visual Studio 2019). The .dll can than be found in ".\micro-manager\mmCoreAndDevices\build\Release\x64".

Features

• Imaging in grayscale and 32bit RGBA. One can switch between 8bit grayscale and 32bit RGBA in Device -> Device Property Browser -> IDSCam - PixelType
• Multi-camera support. One can switch between cameras using the dropdown in Device -> Device Property Browser -> IDSCam-CameraID. The actual ID is an arbitrary zero-indexed identifier. To know which camera is actually open, you can check the IDSCam-Serial Number and/or IDSCam-CameraName, and compare them to the model and serialnumber of the cameras. Note that switching cameras does not automatically switch settings.

Known limitations

• The maximum framerate of the 32bit RBGA pixel format is much lower than advertized or with IDS Peak Cockpit.
  • This is indeed true, the problem is that the camera doesn't support recording BGRA8, which is the only accepted color format of Micro-Manager. Hence, the image has to be recorded in a different pixel format (in this case Bayer RG8) and then converted to BGRA8 on the fly. The maximum obtainable framerate then depends heavily on the (single core) processing speed of your PC. A potential solution is to not do the conversion (just pass the raw bayer data) and perform the debayering after all data is collected. However his methods is not yet implemented.
• The minimum interval during the Multi-Dimensional Acquisition (MDA) is approximately 200 ms, even at low exposure times (e.g. 10 ms)
  • This is a limitation of how MDA events are processed. When the interval is set to less than the exposure time, it will record at the maximum framerate possible ~1/exposureTime. Otherwise it will perform something like a timelapse, where it will start the process of acquiring an image after the interval has passed. Sadly the second process has a lot of overhead, which leads to a maximum framerate of ~5 fps. We're currently thinking of ways to fix this.
• When switching to a cameras, some settings are reset, while others are kept
  • Currently, when switching cameras, the device adapter asks the new camera for its current settings and adapts displayed settings accordingly. Some settings are kept from session to session (typically PixelType, exposureTime and frameRate), while most others are not. If this heavily inhibits the work of others, we could work on a solution where all settings are kept whithin each session, and/or maybe load settings from a config-file.
• When MM is open, I can't open any IDS camera in another software (e.g. IDS Peak Cockpit)
  • Currently, when MM is started, it opens all cameras and keeps them open untill MM is closed. This allows quicker switching between cameras. But this means that none of the other softwares can communicate with any of the connected IDS cameras (even when they are seemingly not in use by MM).

Future features

• Rembering last settings of each camera instance
• More support for other pixel types (10/12 bit grayscale/color)
• Recording Bayer / Packed images in RAW format (to post-process afterwards)
• Give more meaningful error messages
• Improve range of framerates during MDA.

Note that these are just ideas, no promises are made that these will be implemented in a timely manner (or at all). Other suggestions are more than welcome, either create a github issue or send an email to lars.kool@espci.fr

Acknowledgements

This Device Adapter was developed by Lars Kool at Institut Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (Paris, France).