Re: Are USB3 Vision cameras any better than GigE Vision cameras?

["Henrique F. Simoes via Tech-talk" <tech-talk@aps.anl.gov>]

Hi, Mark.

[CC'ing everybody on this one. Sorry for the duplicate message.]

On Mon Aug 25, 2025 at 12:46 PM -03, Mark Rivers wrote:
> Hi Henrique,
>
> I have been using both USB3 Vision and GigE Vision cameras for many
> years.  In general, I have found both to be very stable, though GigE
> Vision cameras sometimes have occasional dropped frames.

Interesting.

> I have used USB3 Vision for cameras that require greater bandwidth
> than GigE can support, for example this Grasshopper3 camera
>
> https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.teledynevisionsolutions.com/products/grasshopper3-usb3/?model=GS3-U3-23S6M-C&vertical=machine*20vision&segment=iis__;JQ!!G_uCfscf7eWS!YztsVW0oZYGfh57L_JCp7_XmRqoSeixyJGiZyT2TnvSk6CGFa3kyG8wEeu9vZI1zM3Hg55oiKj-FUHalBM8LIXVzfKGGQUU3$ 

Nice. That's really an advantage I didn't consider before.

>> To me, they have the drawback of requiring a computer right next to it,
>
> That is not really true.  I use this active USB3 extender cable, and
> the distance between the camera and the computer can be more than 25
> meters (20m for the extender cable plus 3m for the normal USB-3
> cable).  The above camera runs at the full USB3 rate with no problems.
>
> https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.amazon.com/SIIG-Active-Repeater-20-Meters-JU-CB0811-S1/dp/B0053YLYLC?th=1__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!YztsVW0oZYGfh57L_JCp7_XmRqoSeixyJGiZyT2TnvSk6CGFa3kyG8wEeu9vZI1zM3Hg55oiKj-FUHalBM8LIXVzfKJTT7oE$ 

Oh, sure. I should've been more explicit about what I meant by "right
next to it". With USB cameras, we would probably need a computer per
beamline. With Ethernet cameras, we are moving to setup where multiple
cameras are controlled by a data-center server with a 100Gbps network
card. This means possibly having a single or just a few more powerful
machines for cameras from all beamlines, placed in a proper room (with
restricted access, appropriate cooling, etc). Of course, we will be
relying on multiple switches to get the traffic to the data center. As
of now, a single beamline is using this setup, though.

Even for that beamline, I've heard at least once about disconnections as
well, so this migration doesn't seem to solve anything in this regard.

> GigE cameras can have issues if they are sharing network bandwidth
> with many devices, but in general I have found them to be quite
> reliable.  You can eliminate virtually all issues by using a dedicated
> NIC and direct connection to the camera.

That's something different from our general setup. I only know of a
single FLIR camera using point-to-point link. The beamline staff reports
they often need to power cycle it before using nevertheless.

Most of them have their traffic routed by the beamline switch to a
rather weak computer with a 1Gpbs NIC, which can share the bandwidth
with multiple cameras. However, users acquire with one camera at a time
(as it is used for beam alignment) with one-eighth of the maximum frame
rate (which turns out to deliver 100Mbps of data). With such a low
bandwidth usage, I wouldn't expect this to be causing instabilities such
as sudden disconnections, and so on.

Has the simple fact of using switches shown you a different behavior or
is that really related to sharing the bandwidth (so that the camera has
to compete for it)?

> That is less convenient than using switches, but it allows greater
> distances than USB3.  I am running my tomography data collection with
> a 10G Ethernet camera on a dedicated NIC and have no problems with
> dropped packets or dropped frames.
>
> https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.teledynevisionsolutions.com/products/oryx-10gige/?model=ORX-10GS-51S5M-C&vertical=machine*20vision&segment=iis__;JQ!!G_uCfscf7eWS!YztsVW0oZYGfh57L_JCp7_XmRqoSeixyJGiZyT2TnvSk6CGFa3kyG8wEeu9vZI1zM3Hg55oiKj-FUHalBM8LIXVzfFfaa2Dp$ 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

--
Henrique F. Simões
Control Software Group (SwC)
Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS)
Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM)

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