What Is a Channel?
The Channel class groups all MultiCam parameters dedicated to the control of image acquisition related features.
A Channel object is an instance of the Channel class, represented by a dedicated set of such parameters.
Typically, the following items are defined and controlled by the Channel object:
- The camera feeding the channel, including reset and exposure control
- The connector and cable linking the camera to the frame grabber
- The switching structures routing the analog or digital video signal inside the frame grabber
- In case of analog camera, the analog-to-digital converter and the associated signal conditioning devices
- In case of digital camera, the digital receiving or de-serializing devices
- The timing generator and controller associated to the camera, and the video signal conditioning
- All digital devices affecting the signal during acquisition, performing tasks such as lookup tables, byte alignment, data channel merging...
- The data buffer receiving the images
- The DMA devices extracting images out of the data buffer for transfer into host memory
- The destination cluster of host memory surfaces
- The hardware resources managing the external system trigger
The channel is the association of an individual grabber connected to a camera delivering data to a set of surfaces, called a cluster. The channel is able to transport an image from the camera towards a surface belonging to the cluster and usually located in the host memory.