How to use FLiR Blackfly S (GigE) machine vision cameras in Swing Catalyst
This article covers how to use Spinnaker compatible GigE Vision cameras in Swing Catalyst.
Some older models are also supported such as the Blackfly GigE (non S variants) be used as a reference guide for those respective cameras. There are differences between models with regards to available settings & features, as such this article might not be exactly the same as on your screen.
Note: Spinnaker is only supported in Swing Catalyst versions 9.4 and up.
Related topics & recommendations:
We strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with our recommendations before purchasing cameras or a computer system. Having a dedicated network card for your camera system is recommended.
- Gigabit Ethernet & GigE Vision recommendations
- Recommended computer specifications
- Setting up FLiR Blackfly S USB in Swing Catalyst
- Which version of Swing Catalyst am I running?
This article is split into different sections
Physical hardware setup (camera & lens).
Software configuration (IP configuration).
Software configuration (camera configuration).
Related topics & recommendations:
We strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with our recommendations before purchasing cameras or a computer system. USB 3.0 can be have stability issues, and is generally not something we (Swing Catalyst) recommend for fixed camera installations.
- Recommended USB 3.0 Components
- Recommended computer specifications
- Setting up FLIR Blackfly S GigE in Swing Catalyst
Getting started: Hardware setup
Attach the tripod adapter to the camera body using the 4 black Phillips head screws included with the camera.
Unpack the lens and make sure to remove the plastic lens covers
Remove the sensor cover from the camera:
Attaching the lens to the camera
Adjusting the camera lens:
This lens has three adjustments, from top to bottom:
- Focus (adjusting towards the ∞ symbol will make objects further away in the background in focus)
- Aperture (iris adjustment, will adjust how much light is able to pass through the lens, a more closed aperture will result in a sharper image).
- Zoom (adjusts the zoom of the lens wide or telephoto).
Installing the dual port network card
Important: It's important the network card is configured per recommendations.
Getting started: Driver installation
Click to download drivers (If using Chrome right click and "save link as")
Once downloaded click on the executable and follow the setup wizard.
- Choose "Camera Evaluation".
- Leave "I will use GigE Cameras" box checked.
IP Configuration
After driver installation you should be prompted to run AdapterConfigGUI. If not it can be located in C:\Program Files\FLIR Systems\Spinnaker\shortcuts\utilities
The adapter config utility will look like this
Click "Start" and select any "Intel(R) 82574L" adapters.
Click on "Smart Config" and the utility will do the rest.
Configuring your camera in Swing Catalyst Settings
Make sure the camera is connected to your computer and that the LED in the back of the camera is blinking green.
Start Swing Catalyst and click Settings, -> Cameras.
Spinnaker cameras are denoted with Spinnaker in the camera list.
Click Advanced...
The Advanced Camera Settings window exposes all of the settings you might find handy, lets take a look at each individual setting.
The settings you see above are the default camera settings, note that most of the settings are set to auto, we can change these settings to get better control over the video image quality for sports analysis.
Changing the frame rate:
Checking the Frame rate control enable box will allow you to manually set the frame rate, if this box is unchecked the frame rate is essentially set to auto (note: the maximum frame rate of this camera is 78 FPS. To achieve the maximum frame rate all of the settings need to be set to manual).
Frame rate can be limited by the shutter speed and the device link throughput settings. In this case in order to achieve the full frame rate we need to increase the throughput (more on that later).
Changing shutter speed:
Unless we're outdoors in sunlight it's better to use a manual shutter speed, otherwise it's likely the video will be too blurry for sports analysis. To reduce blur we recommend a shutter speed less than 2ms (2000μs), with adequate lighting the shutter speed can be less than 1ms (1000μs).
How bright the video image will be is a combination of the shutter speed, gain settings, lens aperture and how much light is available.
Changing camera gain:
Having gain set to auto is preferable in changing light conditions, but if you have an indoors environment setting gain to manual is the better way to go.
The higher the dB value, the brighter the image, however there will also be more noise as a result which may make the overall video quality seem poor. Sometimes it is worth having a slightly higher gain at the expense of noise in order to bring the shutter speed down to get sharp frame by frame video of an object (e.g club at impact, baseball bat etc).
Changing gamma and black levels:
Black level can be considered a form of brightness adjustment, where the black level corresponds to the minimum value that any pixel on the camera sensor will return.
By increasing the black level value we can make the image brighter.
Our recommendation is to leave this at the default values.
For more details on improving your video image please see this support article which has comparison photos: https://support.swingcatalyst.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009187999-Improving-camera-image-quality
Changing the cameras white balance:
Normally we recommend to leave this setting to auto (continuous) but in order to achieve the maximum frame rate this also needs to be turned off.
White balance will affect the color temperature of the video image, and if the white balance is very wrong the image will not look very good, often leaving the image appearing too red or green.
By enabling auto white balance we sacrifice some frame rate leaving us at 200 FPS instead of the camera maximum 226 FPS.
Device link throughput:
On GigE cameras device link throughput and packet size are connected to each other in the sense that in order to use the largest throughput the packet size needs to be set to 9000. In order to achieve the full frame rate this must be done.
Applying Region Of Interest (ROI):
Region of interest is a way to reduce the image size and by extension also the bandwidth required for each image. By reducing the image size we can increase the frame rate as the overall pixel readout requirement is smaller.
Reducing the height and width can have a positive effect on frame rate and lowering the bandwidth requirements.
To change the region of interest we can drag the height slider to the left to reduce the height of the image.
Since we've changed the height of the image, we can also now change the Y offset which can be helpful as an alternative to physically moving the camera due to the reduced image size.
If we go back to the Camera tab and look under frame rate, we now see the maximum frame rate can be set increased, this is because we applied a region of interest by reducing the height of the camera sensor).
Troubleshooting
Please see our GigE Vision / Gigabit Ethernet recommendations:
Note: We recommend all users of the Blackfly BFS-PGE-04S2C models to update the firmware on each camera:
Instructions from FLIR on how to update the firmware: http://softwareservices.flir.com/BFS-U3-50S5-BD2/latest/Family/Firmware.htm
Firmware file to download: https://flir.app.boxcn.net/s/jr65evml5bkuqnh19sx49lm3clf7nr0k
Dropped frames:
Although most GigE cameras are very reliable, depending on the network setup and camera setup it may be necessary to tweak the settings to avoid dropped frames.
Make sure the packet size is set to 9000, this is crucial for good performance, otherwise there is a real possibility you may drop frames. It's also important that the network adapter is setup to use 9kB jumbo frames as well so both the camera & network adapter match.
One GigE camera with a resolution of: 1440 x 1200 resolution at 78 FPS will use roughly 134MB/s per camera. - It is therefor important to have a dedicated network controller card per our recommendations for multiple camera setups (in most cases). If you've purchased a GigE camera through us you will have a PCI Express dual port network card to install.
We normally do not recommend running more than one camera on one network adapter.
Filter driver:
..
Region Of Interest (ROI):
Using a region of interest (or area of interest) will reduce the overall image size and boost the FPS, but also it can help lower the bandwidth usage which in turns could reduce dropped frames (see above on how to utilize ROI).
Other problems:
Depending on your hardware it might not be the best to have the sharpening and denoise filters on, turning these off will reduce some CPU & GPU usage. You can find the camera filters in the Advanced Camera Settings Filters tab. More info on filters here: https://support.swingcatalyst.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009187999
Status Indicator Explanation
| LED | Meaning | Recommendation |
| No Light | No Power or LED is in inactive state or LED is in error status state with no error | Try disconnecting the camera & reconnecting, if problem persists investigate cable or power source |
| Blinking Green (1 blink) | Device is configured to use Link-Local Address (LLA) | - Not a problem |
| Blinking Green (2 blinks) | Persistent IP Address | Device is configured for persistent IP |
| Blinking Green (3 blinks) | DHCP IP Address | Device is configured to be used with DHCP (generally not recommended, we recommend setting static / persistent IP) |
| Solid Green | Acquisition Started | Camera is streaming video |
| Rapid Flashing Green | Firmware update | A firmware update is in progress |
| Flashing Green and Red | General Error | The camera is in an error state, try to power cycle the camera |