Score: 4
When purchasing the camera I checked that the software supports Linux, and was told that was the case. I explained that I was looking the the highest possible frame rate, and Gabriella was very helpful - we selected a unit that would be capable of capturing frames at over 800FPS in my application.
Unfortunately it turns out that the Galaxy Viewer tool, when running in Linux, lacks a plugin that is required for capturing sequential frames - there is only a button one can click to capture a single frame manually - next to useless in a machine vision context.
I got in touch with Gabriella, who sold me the camera, and Timo in technical support, and they advised that the only solution is to write my own software around the Python or C++ SDK. They directed me to some Python examples, but they are naiively contrived and can only read data up to around 5FPS, even on my powerful computer, and after I optimised the code a bit. I also looked at the Aravis framework, which was able to successfully test the camera at 800FPS, but it still requires some custom software to to actually capture frames to disk.
I bought this camera to validate the operation of a mechanical device for my customer. I am an electronic engineer and product design consultant, not a professional software engineer. I can write some C and some Python, but it's not my main business and it usually takes me a while.
Unfortunately I don't have the time in this project for custom software development, so I have had to drop the imaging part of the project entirely.
The camera is now a £600 white elephant in the corner of my lab. Less than two weeks after purchase I asked about a return for refund, and was advised that it would not be possible.
Hopefully when I have some time I will be able to write some code to use the camera.
I would advise other Linux users to avoid the Daheng cameras. There are other cameras on the market that are UVC compliant, and plug directly into the Video4Linux system without any drivers. I should have bought one of them, but it would have taken over a month to arrive so I took the chance on the Genicam protocol.
I suggest you tell prospective customers that need Linux support that your cameras don't have it, and they need to have the resources to write their own software around the Aravis libraries. They seem to be the best developed.
Cheers
Jeff
