Find general GigE troubleshooting tips here:
Find additional information on hardware configuration here:
A) Gather Basic Information
Get to know the exact configuration of the camera in relation to the network card installed in the computer:
Is the camera connected directly to the Ethernet card, or is there a network switch involved? If using multiple cameras: Is each camera connected to a separate Ethernet card, or are they connected via a network switch? How are the cameras acquiring their IP addresses? Are they using automatic IP configuration? If using multiple cameras, what are the subnets of each of the cameras?
B) Common Issues
One common situation is when the camera is detected with "IMAQHWINFO" or "IMAQTOOL", but images cannot be acquired from the camera (blank/black preview), or a timeout error occurs on GETSNAPSHOT, or no frames are acquired on START. This is caused by a firewall or a GigE packet filtering driver (installed by a 3rd party vendor installation) that interferes with the streaming images communication between camera and MATLAB.
When using the GigE Vision adaptor in MATLAB, a firewall for the specific gigabit ethernet connection dedicated to the camera used should be disabled. The firewall for the other network connections (not used for GigE Vision camera communication) can be left enabled.If the firewall is active for the GigE Vision ethernet camera connection, even if some firewall exceptions are set for MATLAB, it will most likely still interfere with camera communication. When UDP packets for GigE Vision Streaming Protocol are transmitted, the ports on the camera and gigabit ethernet card are dynamic, so it is difficult to setup a firewall configuration to allow for this.Depending on the firewall configuration it is possible to have a scenario in which the camera is detected, but the image data stream is blocked by the firewall.Unlike MATLAB, some applications can stream images from a GigE Vision camera even when a firewall is enabled because they use a packet filtering driver.
C) Common Workaround
All GigE cameras are also compatible with GenTL. To configure the camera to work with GenTL:
- Install the “Image Acquisition Toolbox Support Package for GenICam Interface” from the Add-on Manager in MATLAB
- Identify if there is a native GenTL producer from the camera manufacturer. Download and install the producer if it exists. Within the installed producer files, identify a file with the extension .CTI. Copy the path to the folder containing this .CTI file
- If the manufacturer does not provide a GenTL producer, download an open producer like the Baumer GAPI SDK C v2.14 64-bit version from the following link: https://www.baumer.com/us/en/product-overview/industrial-cameras-image-processing/software/baumer-gapi-sdk/windows/c/14175
- Unzip the downloaded folder to whatever location that you want that will not change. Then inside the unzipped folder, navigate to the “bin” directory. There should be a .CTI file in this folder. Copy the path to this folder. For example, it could be, “C:\Program Files\Baumer SDK\bin”
- Edit the “GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH” system environment variable to include the file path that you copied previously. To do this, Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced and click on "Environment Variables..."
- Locate the “GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH” variable and click “Edit...” Click “New” and then paste the path to the folder containing the “.CTI”. Click “OK” to exit the edit menu
- Verify that the "gentl" adaptor loads. You can use the "imaqhwinfo" command to list installed adaptors. The "gentl" adaptor should be included on the list.
