Line Scan Image Acquisition

Unlike area scan cameras, line scan cameras output only one line at a time. However, the programming interface for area scan and line scan cameras is identical. The driver builds up the lines acquired into a 2D image. The height of this image is set in MAX and can be changed with the region of interest height attribute. You also can configure NI-IMAQ to acquire a variable number of lines. Refer to Variable Height Acquisition for more information.

Triggering line scan images is similar to triggering area scan images. Using the imgSessionTriggerConfigure2 function, you can trigger the start of each buffer. The imgSessionLineTrigSource2 function also allows you to trigger each line of the image, not just the start of the image. For example, if you are using a conveyor belt, you can use an encoder to trigger each line of the image and synchronize the movement of the conveyor belt and the image acquisition.

FRAME_START and FRAME_DONE status signals are not valid for a line scan acquisition unless each buffer is triggered. Skip count is not supported for line scan acquisitions. A continuous line scan acquisition into onboard memory is not supported. However, continuous line scan acquisition into system memory is supported.