MultiCam Boards Documentation > MultiCam Documentation > MultiCam User Guide > The Channel Class > Introduction to MultiCam Channels > Grabber and Camera Association

Grabber and Camera Association

A MultiCam channel has the fundamental mission of transferring images from the camera into the host computer memory. To achieve this, the channel uses some hardware resources belonging to the frame grabber board.

The set of needed resource to perform acquisition is called a grabber. Some high-end frame grabbers have enough built-in resources to perform several acquisition tasks simultaneously. It is equivalent to say that such frame grabbers incorporate several grabbers.

When performing acquisition, a channel appropriates a grabber. The grabber appropriation lasts as long as needed to acquire a frame (area-scan) or a page (line-scan).

The tenure of time the channel appropriates a grabber is called an acquisition phase.

During an acquisition phase, the MultiCam channel realizes the temporary association of a camera and a grabber to deliver an image to a surface belonging to the destination cluster.