RE: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500

["Mark Rivers" <rivers@cars.uchicago.edu>]

I just did a quantitative data throughput measurement.
 
The time to capture 368 frames at 1360x1024 resolution was 12.216 seconds.  This is 33.2 msec /frame.
 
The total amount of data is thus 512 MB, for a data rate of 42MB/second.
 
The data have a time stamp with each frame with msec precision, and the mean time between frames was 33msec seconds, with a maximum of 34 msec and minimum of 32 msec.  So it truly is 30 frames/second at this resolution.
 
At 680x512 resolution the measured throughput was 52 frames/second.
 
This was done with a dedicated Ethernet connection to the camera.
 
Mark
 

________________________________

From: Mark Rivers
Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 2:15 PM
To: 'Kate Feng'
Cc: 'Daron Chabot'; 'rtems-users@rtems.org'; 'tech-talk@aps.anl.gov'
Subject: RE: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500


> Thus, the display rate you see is not necessary 334 Mbits/sec.  The eyes
> can not tell.  No one knows exactly how fast the display rate is if
> there is  no 3rd party monitor software to verify.
 
The application DOES give the actual frame update rate, and it is 30Hz +- 1Hz, so I do know the actual value.  You had previously asked if I had a reading of the network bandwidth, which I do not have.
 
Mark
 



________________________________

	From: Kate Feng [mailto:feng1@bnl.gov] 
	Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 12:58 PM
	To: Mark Rivers
	Cc: Daron Chabot; rtems-users@rtems.org; tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
	Subject: Re: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500
	
	
	Mark Rivers wrote:
	

			Does the camera come with it's own display ?  Or do you use EPICS CA for
			display ?  If the real data throughput to the EPICS display is 334 Mbits/sec,
			you should see 42 Mega Bytes/sec of high traffic using the Window network
			perfromace monitor.  
			    

		 
		There is no EPICS involved with this.  It is using the manufacturers display program.
		 
		  

			What's the protocol the camera use for tranferring the data to the host PC ?
			I thought it's the GigE network.  
			    

		 
		It is TCP/IP over Ethernet.
		 
		  

			If so, you should see at least 334 Mbits/sec
			data throughput on the window network performance monitor.  Something
			does not make sense to me.
			    

		 
		The reason that the Windows network performance monitor does not see this traffic is that the camera manufacturer provide their own Ethernet driver for Windows.  This driver grabs all camera packets before Windows sees them, and sends them straight to the camera application.  This is a technique used by most GigE cameras, it greatly reduces the CPU load.  It is restricted to a subset of available GigE Ethernet chip sets, but seems to support all of the ones (Intel, etc.) that I have run into.

	Thus, the display rate you see is not necessary 334 Mbits/sec.  The eyes
	can not tell.  No one knows exactly how fast the display rate is if
	there is  no 3rd party monitor software to verify.
	
	Kate
	

		 
		Mark
		
		 
		
		________________________________
		
		From: Kate Feng [mailto:feng1@bnl.gov]
		Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 8:26 AM
		To: Mark Rivers
		Cc: Daron Chabot; rtems-users@rtems.org; tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
		Subject: Re: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500
		
		
		Mark Rivers wrote:
		
		
			> Does the window has any tool to measure the actual
			> network throughput of the  1GHz ?  Or do you have any
			> H/W tool to measure it ?  If so, how many Mega bytes/sec
			> of throughput ?
			 
			I don't see a tool in their software to measure the network throughput.  I can do a simple calculation for the full frame size at 30 FPS 8-bit mode:
			 
			 1360.*1024.*30.*8 = 334 Mbits/second.
		
			 
			This is the real data throughput to the display, and does not include any protocol overhead.
			 
			The Norpix software includes a replacement Ethernet driver on Windows which looks at all frames before the Windows network stack gets them.  The camera frames go directly to the camera application, and only other frames are passed to the Windows network stack.  So using the Window network perfomance monitor shows virtually no traffic at all.
		
		Does the camera come with it's own display ?  Or do you use EPICS CA for
		display ?  If the real data throughput to the EPICS display is 334 Mbits/sec,
		you should see 42 Mega Bytes/sec of high traffic using the Window network
		perfromace monitor.  If it shows no traffic at all, then the display could be
		only 1 frame/second (e.g. 11 Mbits/sec) while the data transfer is 334 Mbits/sec.
		
		What's the protocol the camera use for tranferring the data to the host PC ?
		I thought it's the GigE network.  If so, you should see at least 334 Mbits/sec
		data throughput on the window network performance monitor.  Something
		does not make sense to me.
		
		Kate
		
		
		
		
			> Can the window run remote client ?
			 
			I don't think so.  But there is a development library to write your own client.
			 
			Mark
			 
		
		
		
		________________________________
		
				From: Kate Feng [mailto:feng1@bnl.gov] 
				Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 12:43 PM
				To: Mark Rivers
				Cc: Daron Chabot; rtems-users@rtems.org; tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
				Subject: Re: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500
				
				
				Mark Rivers wrote:
				
		
					I recently got a GigE camera from Prosilica.  It is 1360x1024 resolution.  At 8-bits the StreamPix software from Norpix is able to acheive frame rates of 30Hz at full resolution, and 52 Hz when it is 2x2 binned to 680x512.  This is under Windows, using the single GigE port on the PC, with the camera and PC connected directly to a GigE switch (which also is connected to the rest of the LAN).
		
		
				Does the window has any tool to measure the actual
				network throughput of the  1GHz ?  Or do you have any
				H/W tool to measure it ?  If so, how many Mega bytes/sec
				of throughput ?
				
				Can the window run remote client ?
				
				Regards,
				Kate
				
		
					 
					Mark
					 
		
		
		________________________________
		
						From: tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov [mailto:tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Kate Feng
						Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 10:17 AM
						To: Daron Chabot; rtems-users@rtems.org; tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
						Subject: Re: firewire video on RTEMS-4.6.x-MVME5500
						
						
						Daron Chabot wrote:
						
		
							Sorry for not being more clear: I am only interested in the EPICS and EDM applications you've created for displaying the video, not in any of the RTEMS-related code.
		
						I did not change any EDM applications or EPICS base.  The protocol
						is CA.   The optimization is implemented at RTEMS device driver
						and IIDC1394 library layers. The BSP is RTEMS-MVME5500.
						The driver does not have to be linked to EPICS.
						It is just another real-time application with the RTEMS-MVME5500
						BSP.  It triggers the camera at 30 fps and  display at 30Hz
						simultaneously for the 1024x768x8bit mode (video mode) even under the
						limited 100MHz network bandwidth and indeterministic network environment. 
						Yes,  in the 100MHz NIC, the actual network throughput is not 
						30Hzx1024x768x8 bits. But it is greater than 10Hz.  Thus, the system does
						not have to run in a private network. I do not believe it
						will  be slower with a non-EPICS application.  
						
						
		
							Here at the CLS we're using linux-based soft IOCs to communicate with Flea and Flea2 cameras.
							 
							We're having difficulty in achieving video frame rates greater than about 10 Hz at 640x480 resolution. I'm interested to know how you are getting such fine performance (aside from using RTEMS :-) ).
							 
		
		
						Perhaps I will have the optimization written in a publication, so that
						hopefully it can help the Linux or vxWorks users.  If so,  will you
						feedback to this list regarding how much improvement you achieved
						in the Linux driver ?
						
						Regards,
						Kate