What's New in Version 3.0 since Version 2.0

Description of the changes from IC Imaging Control 2.0 to IC Imaging Control 3.0.

Frame Filter

With frame filters, a versatile and powerful way to manipulate image data has been introduced. Frame filters can be used to do:

• control which frames will be removed (dropped) from the image stream
• read and write image data to/from frames of the image stream without having to copy the image data to a ring buffer. In other words: the frame filter allows image processing directly on buffers of the image stream (DirectShow buffers).
• to change the video format (pixel format and/or width and height) of the image stream
• implement image processing

Frame filters can be applied to the video stream at 3 locations: directly behind the video capture device, in front of the display and in front of the sink. This concept allows various functions to be implemented, such as a gate filter that passes only specific frames to a media file and drops the other ones. Frame filters can be implemented as part of an application or may reside in a filter container module. IC Imaging Control 3.0 comes with a few often used frame filters that can be loaded from the filter container module stdfilters.ftf:

• ROI filter: changes the width and height of the image stream
• DeBayer filter: transforms color raw data in Bayer format into an RGB color format.
• Flip and rotation filter: Allows the image stream to be rotated (90°, 180° and 270°) and flipped (vertically and horizontally)
• Denoise Filter: sums up a specified number of frames and divides the result by the number.

For details on the filters that come with IC Imaging Control, please refer to the chapter: IC Imaging Control Standard Filters.

Please note that frame filters cannot be implemented in Visual Basic. They have to be implemented in Visual C++ as part of a filter module.

New Sink Concept

IC Imaging Control 3.0 introduces a new sink concept. For an overview of sinks and image streams, please refer to Concepts and Components. Up to this version, sinks were used and managed internally to provide the functionality of accessing image buffers, using FrameReady Events and writing AVI files. There are two new sink objects:

• FrameHandlerSink: This sink provides asynchronous grabbing of a specific number of images to the ring buffer and allows frame filters to be used in order to manipulate image data and control the copy process to the ring buffer collection. Using a frame filter, it is possible to create a ring buffer with a user defined pixel organization or omit the ring buffer collection totally by doing image processing directly on the buffers of the image stream (DirectShow buffers)
• MediaStreamSink: This sink allows other stream containers than AVI to be used. For a description of the currently supported stream containers, please refer to MediaStreamContainer. In addition, the MediaStreamSink allows frame filters to be used in order to manipulate image data and control which frames are written to the stream file. This allows, for example, real time lapse functionality to be implemented.

Advanced Overlay Concept

Instead of having one overlay in the image stream just behind the device, IC Imaging Control 3.0 now allows up to 3 overlay objects to be used. The 3 possible locations are:

• Behind the device: this overlay will appear in the display as well as in the sink (ring buffer, stream file).
• In front of the display: this overlay will appear in the display only.
• In front of the sink: this overlay will appear in the sink (ring buffer, stream file) only.

This new concept, for example, allows you to have an overlay on the display, while doing image processing on the original image data or having different overlays on the display and on the sink (ring buffer and stream file).

Support for Raw Color Data in Bayer Format

Using IC Imaging Conrol 3.0, it is possible to apply color interpolation to raw image data in Bayer format. The color interpolation is called debayering and may be applied to the display, as well as to the data that goes to the sink (ring buffer and stream file). For details, please refer to the chapter Debayering.

Support for 16 bit Monochrome Formats

IC Imaging Control 3.0 now supports high resolution monochrome and raw color (Bayer) formats with a pixel depth of up to 16 bit. A suitable display mode for all these formats is provided.

New Features Reference

List of all new features

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