Fw: Bayer to RGB areaDetector

["arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk" <arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk>]

Hi Mark,



thanks for the reply. As you say, using the Bayer mode is useful as it cuts down network traffic, and it is for this reason I was investigating this option.



At DLS we haven't used ADProsilica, as we've chosen aravisGigE as our driver, which allows using different cameras from different vendors (mainly AVT) and this driver is used throughout our beamlines, so we don't want to introduce another driver.



I have looked at the NDPluginColorConvert source code, and seen that it surrounds calls to the PvApi debayering method with an #ifdef #endif block; as the PvApi library was removed from ADCore which contains the plugin, could that block be removed, as that code will never see that library?



From discussing with other controls engineers here, as we want to keep using aravisGigE, it would be good if this driver had its own bayer support built in, like ADProsilica and ADPointGrey do. We can pretty much achieve this using OpenCV, by adding the debayering method into our support module adOpenCV; I think this is the way we will go.



Thanks for your response, Mark, and the info about why/when the library was moved, and other drivers that support the method.



Cheers,



Arvinder Palaha
Beamline Control Systems
DH G.63
T: +44-(0)1235-77-8137
E: arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk

________________________________
From: Mark Rivers <rivers@cars.uchicago.edu>
Sent: 03 May 2018 18:35:37
To: Palaha, Arvinder (DLSLtd,RAL,TEC); tech-talk
Subject: Re: Bayer to RGB areaDetector

Hi Avinder,


What version of ADProsilica are you using?  The conversion from Bayer to RGB is handled in the ADProsilica driver (prosilica.cpp) using the pvAPI library.


There is a PV you need to set, $(P)$(R)BayerConvert.  It is in the lower-left of the medm prosilica.adl screen-shot in the documentation here:

http://cars9.uchicago.edu/software/epics/prosilicaDoc.html


You should set BayerConvert=RGB1.  Then the output images will be in RGB1 format which the ffmpeg plugin and viewer should handle fine.  Using Bayer mode with conversion in the driver like this is a good idea because it reduces the network bandwidth of the camera by a factor of 3.


This conversion from Bayer to RGB1 was moved from the ColorConvert plugin into the ADProsilica driver in R2-0 of ADProsilica (March, 2014) as documented here:


https://github.com/areaDetector/ADProsilica/blob/master/RELEASE.md


This conversion is also supported in the ADPointGrey driver.


Mark



________________________________
From: tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov <tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov> on behalf of arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk <arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk>
Sent: Thursday, May 3, 2018 10:37 AM
To: tech-talk
Subject: Bayer to RGB areaDetector

Dear tech-talk,

Using areaDetector, I have been trying to use the Bayer color mode with a Mako G507C camera at DLS, but to no avail.

When using either the Mono or RGB mode, I see an updated image on the ffmpegViewer screen, but not with Bayer mode.

I tried using the NDPluginColorConvert plugin; converting Bayer color mode to RGB1 (or even Mono) but this also causes the ffmpegViewer stream to stop.

Looking in the NDPluginColorConvert.cpp in ADCore/ADApp/pluginSrc, it depends on PVAPI to deal with debayering, and this was a library from Prosilica, which is a proprietary library, but not in ADCore anymore.

There is demosaicing function in OpenCV that can convert a bayer format to RGB.

My question is: could ADCore depend on OpenCV in order for the color convert plugin bayer feature to work?

If not, could we use the OpenCV method in a separate support module (we have one at DLS called adOpenCV)?



For info; I am using ADCore 2-6 and ffmpegServer 3-1


Cheers,


Arvinder Palaha
Beamline Control Systems
DH G.63
T: +44-(0)1235-77-8137
E: arvinder.palaha@diamond.ac.uk


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