Silicon Software GmbH, manufacturer of frame grabbers and intelligent image processing solutions, has released version 3.2 of its VisualApplets graphical development environment, with a scalable operator for JPEG compression of grayscale and color images, and further developed the automation of the software by a Tcl console and additional features.
The JPEG application with its encoding performance of up to 7.2 GB/s on the current microEnable 5 marathon frame grabber series represents the most powerful market solution. By combining it with further image processing steps, high-quality color reconstructions from Bayer CFA cameras can be latency-free pre-connected.
The JPEG operator is freely scalable to any image input data rate, which is only limited by available FPGA resources. This makes it a future-proof solution for the latest FPGA technologies and VisualApplets compatible hardware such as frame grabbers, cameras and vision sensors. Limitations by the bandwidths of interfaces such as Camera Link HS and CoaXPress and by the DMA transfer bandwidth can be compensated by JPEG compression. This allows current high-performance camera sensors to be used at full bandwidth. Additional image pre- and post-processing at JPEG compression can be integrated into the VisualApplets design.
The operator compresses 8-bit grayscale images and 24-bit RGB color images with variable image compression rates in real-time on the FPGA. It has flexible setting options, such as the parameterization of image quality, compression rate and header information. The JPEG operator can be used effectively wherever continuously high image data volumes are created, for example, by long image sequences or high-performance camera interfaces such as CoaXPress, for quality assurance of band material, offline inspection of roads, tunnels and railroad tracks, long-term recordings, process documentation and archiving.
The JPEG operator is available as a separate license within the extension VisualApplets Libraries and runs on the microEnable 5 frame grabber series. It is also possible to continue using the previous version of the operator.
Tcl console automates the design process
The Tcl console with built-in Tcl interpreter simplifies script-based work with VisualApplet designs. More than 80 commands are available for direct input or creation of Tcl scripts. The command set allows the creation, manipulation and simulation of designs. For example, complex processes such as the simulation of thousands of images with different parameter settings can be performed automatically via script.
In addition, external image processing software can be connected to easily transfer design parameters or images. Script Collection makes it possible to build libraries of self-defined Tcl scripts, parameterize them and execute them from the user interface. The Tcl console is part of the extension VisualApplets Expert.
A new simulation engine has been implemented for a more comfortable development process. This enables users to test and verify the application during development for reliable statements about the later runtime behavior. To monitor the bandwidth, it is possible to display the maximum data throughput rate for each link in the design window.
The new version of the VisualApplets Embedder extension supports vision platforms using Ultrascale or Ultrascale+ FPGAs.
