FLIR BLACKFLY S GIGE User manual

FLIR BLACKFLY S GIGE
Getting Started guide

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Attach the tripod adapter to the camera body using
the 4 black Phillips head screws included with the
camera.
Unpack the lens and make sure to remove the plastic
lens covers.
Remove the sensor cover from the camera and attach
the lens to the camera with a twisting motion.
HARDWARE SETUP
Follow these steps after unboxing your camera:
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ADJUSTING THE CAMERA LENS
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Focus: Adjusting towards the ∞ symbol will make
objects further away come into focus.
Aperture: The iris adjustment controls how much
light is able to pass through the lens. A more closed
aperture will result in a sharper image, but the image
will also be darker.
Zoom: Adjusts the zoom of the lens; wide or telephoto.
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This lens has three adjustments, from top to bottom:

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The ethernet card is needed to run our PoE cameras. One card can run up to two cameras. Please make
sure that your computer has an available PCI Express slot for this card.
To install the dual port network card, please watch the video tutorial below (clicking the image will open
the video link).
Please note: It’s important the network card is configured per recommendations.
INSTALLING THE NETWORK CARD

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Visit www.swingcatalyst.com/downloads, select
”see all drivers” and download the driver for
”Blackfly S & Spinnaker compatible cameras”. Once
downloaded, click on the executable and follow the
setup wizard.
// Choose ”Camera Evaluation”.
// Leave ”I will use GigE Cameras” box checked.
DRIVER INSTALLATION

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After driver installation you should be
prompted to run AdapterConfigGUI. If
not it can be located in:
C:\Program Files\FLIR Systems\
Spinnaker\shortcuts\utilities
// Click ”Start” and select any ”Intel(R)
82574L” adapters.
// Click on ”Smart Config” and the
utility will do the rest.
IP CONFIGURATION

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Make sure the camera is connected to your
computer and that the LED in the back of the
camera is blinking green.
// Start Swing Catalyst and click Settings, and
Cameras.
// Select your camera from the list, and click
Advanced.
The Advanced Camera Settings window exposes
many settings which you might find handy.
Note that most of the settings are set to auto.
We can change these settings to get better
control over the image quality for video analysis.
We will take a look at each setting in the next
pages.
CONFIGURING THE CAMERA

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ADVANCED CAMERA SETTINGS
Frame rate indicates how many frames the camera is capable of recording per second.
Checking the Frame rate control enable box will allow you to manually set the frame rate, if this box is
unchecked the frame rate is essentially set to auto (note: the maximum frame rate of this camera is 291
FPS. To achieve the maximum frame rate all of the settings need to be set to manual).
Frame rate can be limited by the shutter speed and the device link throughput settings. In this case in order
to achieve the full frame rate we need to increase the throughput (more on that later).
Changing the frame rate

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ADVANCED CAMERA SETTINGS
Shutter speed is the duration of time which the camera shutter is open, which affects the amount of light
the camera sensor is exposed to and the time it takes to
Unless we’re outdoors in sunlight it’s better to use a manual shutter speed, otherwise it’s likely the video
will be too blurry for sports analysis. To reduce blur we recommend a shutter speed less than 2ms (2000μs),
with adequate lighting the shutter speed can be less than 1ms (1000μs).
How bright the video image will be is a combination of the shutter speed, gain settings, lens aperture and
how much light is available.
Changing the shutter speed

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Gain is an electronic amplification of the video signal.
The higher the dB value, the brighter the image, however there will also be more noise as a result which
may make the overall video quality seem poor. Sometimes it is worth having a slightly higher gain at the
expense of noise in order to bring the shutter speed down to get sharp frame by frame video of an object
(e.g club at impact, baseball bat etc).
Having gain set to auto is preferable in changing light conditions, but if you have an indoors environment
setting gain to manual is the better way to go.
ADVANCED CAMERA SETTINGS
Changing camera gain