Active Silicon FireBird User manual

QUICKSTART GUIDEQUICKSTART GUIDE
FireBird Frame Grabbers - Installation and Use

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 2
FIREBIRD FRAME GRABBERS – QUICKSTART GUIDE
Contents
FIREBIRD FRAME GRABBERS – QUICKSTART GUIDE 2
HARDWARE INSTALLATION 3
SOFTWARE INSTALLATION 4
UPDATING THE FIREBIRD FIRMWARE 5
WHERE TO GO NEXT 6
ACTIVECAPTURE - INTRODUCTION 7
ACTIVECAPTURE - IN USE 8
GENTL CAMERA LINK SETUP UTILITY 9
WHAT ELSE IS INSTALLED? 10
SOFTWARE UN-INSTALLATION 11
CONTACT DETAILS 12
Disclaimer
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document,
Active Silicon assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Active Silicon
reserves the right to change the specication of the product described within
this document and the document itself at any time without notice and without
obligation of Active Silicon to notify any person of such revisions or changes.
Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2013-2020 Active Silicon. All rights reserved. This document may
not in whole or in part, be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in any
electronic medium or machine readable form, or translated into any language or
computer language without the prior written consent of Active Silicon.
Trademarks and Acknowledgements
All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation
in the United States and/or other countries.
GenICam is a trademark of EMVA, CoaXPress is a trademark of JIIA, Camera Link
is a trademark of AIA.
Part Information
Part Number: FBD-MAN-QS.

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 3
Power o and open up the computer
taking the usual anti-static
precautions.
Please note: The boards are keyed so
that they can only be tted into a slot
in which they will work.
Do not modify the FireBird board or
the motherboard in an attempt to
override the keying as this could result
in serious damage.
For full performance, boards with a
part number including ’PE8’ must
be tted in a slot that supports
PCI Express at x8 width; similarly
those including ‘PE4’must use a
slot supporting x4. Boards with a
part number including ’3PE’ must
be tted in a slot that supports PCI
Express at Gen 3 speeds; similarly
those including ‘2PE’ must use a slot
supporting Gen 2 speeds. Check your
computer documentation for details
of the PCI Express connectors.
CoaXPress Boards Only: For
multichannel CoaXPress boards,
and the 1XCXP6-2PE8 board, if the
board will be used to power cameras
through the CoaXPress cables using
PoCXP then the auxiliary power
connector J13 must be connected
to the computer power supply. The
correct power supply cable is one
intended for PCI Express Graphics
(PEG) cards, and may have 6 or 8
ways. To distinguish it from other
similar connectors in the computer,
the connector should be black and
may be marked ‘PCI-E’ or ‘PEG’. Similar
connectors that are not PEG should be
white. However this is often not the
case, so the cables should be carefully
checked for the pattern of squares
and chamfers on the plastic body of
the connector at the end of the cable.
See the images below.
Also, the wires should be black on
the side with the connector clip, and
colored (often yellow or blue) on the
other side.
If the connector does not match
those shown above, DO NOT
attempt to force it into FireBird as
this could result in serious damage.
If a 6 way connector is plugged into
FireBird, it should be aligned at the
upper 6 ways of the 8 way FireBird
connector as shown below.
PEG cable splitters, PEG to SATA
adapters and PEG to‘Molex’adapters
are available from Active Silicon and
are included in the optional cable
starter kit.
Close and power on the computer.
HARDWARE INSTALLATION
6-way PEG Cable Connector
8-way PEG Cable Connector
6-way Cable Alignment

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 4
SOFTWARE INSTALLATION
The Active Silicon FireBird Package
includes the FireBird Driver (device driver
and core libraries), various applications
including ActiveCapture, a GenICam-
based GUI program, and the GenTL
Producer. Additionally, ActiveSDK is for
software developers.
By default, selecting Typical installs
everything, but individual options can be
deselected if required (see image below).
The packages are supplied as a
compressed le which includes the
installation package along with these
instructions and the release notes.
The le naming convention is:
as-<product>-<OS>- vXX_YY_ZZ
where <product> is:
zfbd-cxp for the FireBird CoaXPress
Package.
zfbd-cl for the FireBird Camera Link
Package.
zfbd-sdk for the FireBird ActiveSDK
Package.
Software Installation Options
Windows® 10
Uninstall any previous version of
the Active Silicon FireBird Package
(see page 11). Note: The previous
SDK can be left on the PC to allow
developers to refer to both old and
new SDKs.
Un-zip the required msi package to a
local disk.
Run the msi.
Follow the on-screen prompts,
including to reboot the PC once
installation has completed.
After completing installation it is
recommended to update the FireBird
rmware (see the next page).
Windows Service
Part of the installation is a Windows
service ‘Active Silicon FireBird’ which
automatically runs as Windows starts.
This loads the main rmware into
FireBird boards with part numbers
including ‘3PE’. Until the service runs
these boards have limited functionality,
and from a hardware viewpoint they
do not power or discover connected
cameras and LEDs do not function. This
process is needed to meet PCI Express
requirements with the larger FPGA used.
Other Operating Systems
See the specic Quickstart Guide
supplied with the installation package.
Note: <xx> represents the camera interface, e.g. CXP or CL.

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 5
It is recommended to always update the
rmware on FireBird boards to match
that in the current driver set. This is also
important because new boards ship with
rmware used in production testing.
UPDATING THE FIREBIRD FIRMWARE
The Design option controls the configuration mode of the board. The options presented
depend on the board in use. The options with a 4xCXP6 FireBird are shown here.
Default updates the rmware keeping the same conguration mode as before the update.
4xCXP6: 1 Camera selects the conguration mode with 1 camera with up to 4 coax cables.
4xCXP6: 2 Camera selects the conguration mode with 2 cameras each with 2 coax cables.
4xCXP6: 4 Camera selects the conguration mode with 4 cameras each with 1 coax cable.
The Feedback window shows which boards
will be updated, their current conguration
and rmware version, what they will be
updated to, and progress information during
updating.
The Board option allows only selected boards
in a system to be updated. By default all
boards are updated. Note that updater
will update any Phoenix boards it nds in a
system as well as FireBirds.
Click the Program Board(s) button to start
the update process. Wait for the process to
complete, then reboot the PC.
If the updater fails for any reason so
that the board is no longer recognized,
jumper J8 can be moved to the‘FF’
position before rebooting the PC to allow
the board to congure from its‘Factory’
design, to allow the update process to
be run again. When the updater has
nished, shut down the PC and move
the jumper back to its default position
before powering up the board. See the
Jumpers section of the FireBird Hardware
Manual for more information.
Note: The above refers to Windows. For the location of utilities
and documentation for other for other operating systems refer to
the specic Quickstart Guide.
Note: <xx> represents the camera interface, e.g. CXP or CL.
four coax cables, but it can be congured
e.g. to support four cameras each with
one coax cable by selecting Design
4xCXP6: 4 Camera.
To update rmware select Flash
Programming from the Tools menu
in ActiveCapture to run the FireBird /
Phoenix Firmware Updater utility.
This utility also allows the configuration
mode of the board to be changed – for
example a four input CoaXPress board by
default supports one camera with up to

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 6
WHERE TO GO NEXT
Check the PC BIOS
Older BIOS versions in PCs can
give noticeably lower PCI Express
bandwidth. It is recommended to
check for available BIOS updates,
especially if any bandwidth problems
are seen.
Many PCs now support power saving
features in the BIOS. These can result
in poor PCI Express bandwidth,
maybe only occasionally. Therefore
Active Silicon recommends that the
following settings are used (where
available):
zC-States set to‘O’.
zSpeedstep set to ‘O’.
zPCI Performance Mode set to ‘On’.
zPCI Express Power Management set
t o ‘ O  ’.
Check the Bandwidth
Next run the Bandwidth Test utility.
FireBird can transfer data at very high
rates but if the PC cannot keep up the
system will not work. This utility, in the
Tools menu in ActiveCapture, shows the
maximum rate that FireBird can transfer
data to the PC.
For a board with part number including
‘3PE8’ a value around 6800 Mbytes/sec
is typical of a good PC; similarly 3400
Mytes/sec for a ‘3PE4’ or ‘2PE8’ and 1700
Mbytes/sec for a ‘2PE4’. A low or unstable
value means that problems are likely to
be seen.
Low Bandwidth?
If the bandwidth test reports a low or
unstable value, check the following:
Check that a suitable PCI Express slot
is in use (see Hardware Installation on
page 3). Sometimes motherboard
restrictions mean that a Gen 2 x16 slot
works much better than a Gen 2 x8
slot, so try using a x16 slot.
Check the BIOS settings (see Check the
PC BIOS opposite).
How old is the motherboard?
Old chipsets may show worse
performance than current ones.
Documentation
The StartMenu under Acve Silicon
FireBird <xx> – Documentaon includes
this document, release notes, and the
following key documents:
The FireBird Hardware Manual gives
full details of all connectors, LEDs and
jumpers on FireBird, I/O support, and PC
requirements.
The FireBird System Manual is the
rst place for system developers and
programmers to go. It gives an overview
of the options to congure a system,
describes all the trigger modes in detail,
and discusses system issues.
Documentation on the API is described
in the ActiveSDK section (see page 10).
Hardware Manual Example
System Manual Example
Bandwidth Test Results

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 7
ActiveCapture is the frontend software
for Active Silicon FireBird frame grabbers.
It is a GenICam GenTL program that
can be used with cameras supporting
GenICam, such as CoaXPress, and
Camera Link ones using CLProtocol, but
it can also be used with non-GenICam
Camera Link cameras. Additionally,
it provides access to utility functions
including the rmware updater.
Run the program from the StartMenu
under Acve Silicon FireBird <xx> –
AcveCapture.
With CoaXPress cameras, no manual
setup of the camera or frame grabber is
needed to get a picture – simply connect
and click the Live button.
With Camera Link GenICam cameras, the
GenTL CL Setup Utility must rst be run
(see page 9), but once that is done,
again simply connect and click the Live
button.
ACTIVECAPTURE - INTRODUCTION
Note: The above refers to Windows. For the location of utilities and documentation for other operating systems refer to the specic Quickstart Guide.
Note: <xx> represents the camera interface, e.g. CXP or CL.
With non-GenICam Camera Link
cameras, the frame grabber needs to
be set up manually, using the feature
browser or a PCF conguration le (see
page 10), before a valid image can
be displayed. The camera will be listed
as “Unknown Device”, because there is
no GenICam system to provide device
details.
Operation Notes:
1. When the program is opened it
attempts to communicate with the
camera(s) and download the XML
le(s) from them. This can be quite
slow, especially with Camera Link
cameras. The discovered devices
will be shown in the Device List.
Any Camera Link cameras that are
not GenICam, or GenICam ones
that have not been set up, show as
“Unknown Device”(see above).
2. Select a camera, such as “Acme
CXP_Camera”highlighted here, and
click the Connect button.
3. Click the Live button for continuous
acquistion, using the specied
number of acquistion buers.
Click the Single Sequence button
to capture the number of images
set by the the specied number of
acquistion buers.
4. The Tools menu gives access to
utilities such as the rmware updater
and the GenTL CL Setup Utility.

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 8
ACTIVECAPTURE - IN USE
1. The image can be zoomed in or out
using the zoom controls, or the “+”
and “-” keys on the keyboard, or the
mouse wheel.
2. The Feature Browser shows the
available features for the device
selected in the Device List.
Any feature that is not greyed out
can be changed. Note that many
features are greyed out while
acquisition is in progress – rst stop
acquistion to change them.
The FireBird features for pixel
format, width and height are
automatically set to match the
camera. Therefore to change the
values of these features, change
them on the camera.
3. The Feature Browser refreshes
visible features periodically while
the system is in use. With Camera
Link cameras this can be slow, and
turning o Polling can be useful.
The Refresh button can then be used
to update features on demand.
4. Clicking the Histogram button
displays a histogram and statistics
for the selected image, or by
entering coordinates, for just part of
the image.
Similarly, the 1D Prole button
shows the intensity prole of all or
part of a line or column.
5. The Console shows status
information and details of any error
messages.
See the built-in Help
for a full description of
ActiveCapture features

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 9
GENTL CAMERA LINK SETUP UTILITY
The GenTL CL Setup Utility needs to
be run to allow the use of Camera Link
cameras that support GenICam. It
is needed because Camera Link pre-
dates GenICam so cameras cannot be
discovered automatically.
The utility only needs to be run once
for a given camera connection. To
Use Camera Probing to select a channel on
a FireBird board, and the camera that is
connected to it.
The list of cameras will show all the CLProtocol
DLLs installed on the machine, including the
generic GenICam#GenCP_01_00 DLL which
should be used for all GenCP cameras.
Click Add to attempt to connect to the camera.
If it is found it will be added to the list of
known cameras.
This list shows all the cameras that have been
found and added using the Camera Probing
controls.
Click Save when the cameras have been
correctly added.
A GenTL application will attempt to connect
to these cameras, so if a camera is removed
from a system or moved to another port,
select the camera and click Delete.
The Status Log shows what the
utility has done.
do this run it from the Tools menu in
ActiveCapture,after ensuring that no
cameras are open in ActiveCapture, and
closing any other application that may
have the cameras open.
After it has been run, refresh the Device
List in the GenTL consumer application
in use, such as ActiveCapure, and the
camera should then be listed and
operate correctly.
The utility associates a CLProtocol DLL
with a specic Camera Link port on
FireBird. For cameras using GenCP, a
generic GenCP DLL is provided as part of
the FireBird installation.
For other cameras, note that only
Camera Link cameras that are provided
with a CLProtocol DLL can be used with
GenICam. Older Camera Link cameras
may not provide a suitable DLL and
therefore will not work with GenICam
applications. Contact the camera vendor
to obtain the correct DLL le.

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 10
WHAT ELSE IS INSTALLED?
Note: The above refers to Windows. For the location of utilities and documentation for other operating systems refer to the specic Quickstart Guide.
Note: <xx> represents the camera interface, e.g. CXP or CL.
GenICam GenTL
The GenTL Producer allows GenTL based
GenICam applications to control the
camera and FireBird. It should work with
third party applications described as
‘GenTL Consumers’, without needing any
custom interface code.
Note that some GenICam applications do
not use GenTL, but rely on direct image
transfer from GigE Vision cameras – these
will not work with FireBird.
Documentation on the Producer and the
following GenTL utilities is in the FireBird
GenTL Producer Manual which can be
found in the StartMenu under Acve
Silicon FireBird <xx> – Documentaon.
ActiveSDK
The FireBird ActiveSDK Introductory
Manual gives an overview of ActiveSDK,
and the various API Manuals describe
the available ActiveSDK functions in
detail. These are in the StartMenu under
Acve Silicon AcveSDK vXX.YY.ZZ –
Documentaon.
Example source code is in the the
StartMenu under Acve Silicon AcveSDK
vXX.YY.ZZ – View Example Source, and
the Visual Studio project can be opened
from the StartMenu under Acve Silicon
AcveSDK vXX.YY.ZZ – Open Example
Projects.
Support Information
The Help menu in ActiveCapture gives
two groups of information that can be
useful when contacting Active Silicon’s
support team.
Show Board Information gives details of
the Active Silicon boards in the system.
System Information gives more general
information about a system. The
information is both displayed to the
screen, and saved in le as_sysinfo.txt in
Public Documents \ Acve Silicon.
Miscellaneous:
PCF setup les for many cameras
are in the StartMenu under Acve
Silicon FireBird <xx> – PCFFiles. These
congure the FireBird board to match
the specied camera. They can be used
with ActiveCapture, and can be read into
programs written using the PHX API.
PhoenixCapture: This is Active Silicon’s
original application to display images
from cameras. It has been replaced by
ActiveCapture, but for users familiar with
the application it can be found in the
Program Files \ Active Silicon \ FireBird<xx>
\ Bin \ Win64/32 directory. The utility is
best used in conjunction with PCF les
(see above).

FireBird Frame Grabbers – Quickstart Guide v2.4 11
Windows
Windows 10: Remove the package
using Windows Settings Apps &
features. All packages are listed with
names starting “Active Silicon”.
Note that it is not necessary to remove
previous copies of ActiveSDK before
installing a new one. Multiple copies
of ActiveSDK can be installed on the
PC to allow developers to refer to both
old and new versions.
Other Operating Systems
See the specic Quickstart Guide
supplied with the installation package.
SOFTWARE UN-INSTALLATION

CONTACT DETAILS
Contact Details
North America
Tel: [phone]
Email: techsuppor[email protected]
Web: www.activesilicon.com
Europe & ROW
Tel: [phone]
Email: techsuppor[email protected]
Web: www.activesilicon.com