Capture

Captures an image on one or more cameras.

Note

This command performs a combination of the Trigger and Retrieve commands. You can use those commands separately for more complex trigger sequences.

Triggering Cameras

Triggering a camera with the Trigger or Capture command prepares the hardware for acquisition of an image according to the camera’s TriggerMode. A hardware triggered camera will be armed and start exposure with the next hardware trigger signal. A software triggered camera will be sent a message to start exposure as soon as possible.

After exposure has finished, the image will be transferred to a buffer from which it can be retrieved by the Retrieve or Capture command (see below).

After a camera was triggered, its Triggered flag will be set until the image has been retrieved successfully or a command that should have retrieved the image failed.

Note

Any errors that occurred during exposure or image transfer will only be reported when trying to retrieve the images with the Retrieve or Capture commands.

Execution Steps

The command executes the following steps:

  1. Trigger the subset of cameras specified by the InitialTrigger parameter. This is equivalent to executing the Trigger command with the same cameras and subset.

  2. Copy images from all triggered cameras into the camera’s raw image nodes if they have already been received by the camera driver. This is equivalent to executing the Retrieve command with Timeout set to zero.

  3. Wait for images to arrive for all cameras specified by the WaitFor parameter and copy them into the camera’s raw image nodes. The overall waiting time is limited by the Timeout parameter. This is equivalent to executing the Retrieve command with the same Timeout.

  4. Trigger the subset of cameras specified by the FinalTrigger parameter. This equivalent to executing the Trigger command with the same cameras and subset.

Camera Order

If the Cameras parameter is specified all operations are executed in the exact order that was specified.

If no order is specified, trigger operations are executed on hardware triggered cameras (in any order) and then on software triggered cameras (in any order).

Error Symbols

  • "CaptureTimeout": The camera did not transfer images within the specified timeout. Increase the timeout or investigate possible errors with the hardware trigger signal or the network image transfer.

  • "ImageTransferFailed": The image could not be transferred over the USB bus. Decrease the PixelClock parameter or disconnect any other devices from the same USB bus. You might also want to try a different USB port on your computer and verify that the camera is connected as the only device to one of your system’s USB root hubs.