2 Dashboard Issues: Build Error and IMAQ Vision VIs

[RoboMaster]

Also here, started another thread on CD 'cause it wouldn't hurt. More heads are better than less. And there are a lot of heads on CD.

We are having two issues with making a custom dashboard, hopefully you can help us:

1. First we got an error when we tried to run a custom dashboard on the Classmate. It said we needed the full version of LabVIEW to execute the application (our Classmate doesn't). We realized that this was because we were using an IMAQ Vision VI to rotate the camera image (invert it). This apparently was fixed in LV update 3.1, but we had that installed...

2. When we removed the problematic VI with the intention of trying the dashboard without it, we would get an error whenever we tried to build it. It says one of the deep, behind the scenes VIs does not have appropreate file permissions. But we were logged into administrator and the LabVIEW folder isn't password protected, of course. Someone has suggested for us to right click on LabVIEW and select "Run as Administrator" so that Windows doesn't get picky. We'll try this tomorrow.

Any other ideas? Thanks so much!!!

[RoboMaster]

Update: we fixed problem number two, the build error. I think the update 3.2 reset some things and just got it working.

We still can't fix the first, full development version error. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Alan Anderson]

I can't find the information that was posted about resolving the IMAQ issue. Maybe someone else will remember better search keywords.

In the meantime, are you using the camera just for display purposes? You can log in to the camera's configuration web page and have it do the 180 degree rotation for you.

[Mark McLeod]

Any particular reason why you don't just install LabVIEW on the Classmate to support whatever you decide to do now and in the future?

Short of that you can use the Kit LabVIEW DVD and select just the Vision libraries to install.

It's also possible to copy the necessary Vision libraries from your full installation to the Classmate.

[RoboMaster]

Thanks for the idea of copying the vision libraries, we will probably try this. I have heard a little bit about doing something like this, but it was for a different issue and with different libraries being copied, I think. However, we might install LabVIEW on the Classmate instead. We didn't really want to before because we didn't want to re-image it to get access to the unused hardrive space. But especially since we aren't using it heavily between the build season and regionals, we might take the time to do that now.

Good thought, but we cannot rotate the image in the camera settings because we are also using it right-side-up some of the time. We have mounted it in the camera frame on a high point on our robot. It rotates around backwards to view the minibot for deployment alignment purposes. But the image is therefore inconveniently upside-down.

[Greg McKaskle]

The camera settings can be changed at runtime. That is what the Set Image Size, Set Image Compression , etc. are doing. When making WPILib, we only wrapped some of the camera settings, and rotation didn't seem as commonly used as the others.

I'll describe this in terms of LV, but you should be able to do the same with other languages.

On a new VI, use the palettes to drop the Camera>>Set Camera Compression VI. Now double click it and flip to the diagram to look at its source code. All it does is state which parameter to change and what value to change it to. You should be able to Save As to a new name Opening the Additional Copy. Change the icon, change the string constant to rotation, and change some of the parameter names.

Most of the LV camera stuff works on laptops or cRIO, so you can test this from a PC connected to the camera.

Post back if you run into issues.

Greg McKaskle

[RoboMaster]

Wow, thanks, that's a great idea. I'll mess around with that; I'm always eager to understand how it works behind the scenes. But will it change the settings slowly, with lag? I think an vision VI on the dashboard will be much more responsive...

[Greg McKaskle]

Doing it on the camera should take effect in one frame, same for doing it on the dashboard. I haven't noticed any lag. Test it and compare.

Greg McKaskle

[RoboMaster]

I see, thanks. We'll take that into consideration, but I think we'll try copying those files first. We might get time tomorrow to check it out.