GigE Vision driver for Matlab, .NET, VB, C#, C++, Delphi, Java

Frequently Asked Questions

I have a GigE Vision™ compatible camera, but I couldn't find it in your compatibility list. Will ActiveGigE work with my camera?
I have an IP camera with an Ethernet interface. Can I use ActiveGigE with it?
ActiveGigE reports 'No GigE Vision camera found' even though my GigE Vision™ camera is plugged and powered up. What is wrong?
ActiveGigE reports 'Possible mismatch of camera IP and network adapter IP'. What to do?
ActiveGigE sees the camera, but no video is displayed, even though the manufacturer's viewer displays the video with no problem. What is wrong?
ActiveGigE installation fails with the following error: 'ActiveGige.dll failed to register, HRESULT -2147024770'. What to do?
I am getting a corrupted video stream. Image is broken in parts or frozen. Why?
How do I use multiple cameras at the same time?
Can I use two ActiveGigE objects to display video in two o more separate windows or different applications?
My camera has a few proprietary features which are not shown in the GenICam tree. Is there any way to control these features with ActiveGigE?
I am trying to run your sample applications, and some of them don't work. Does this mean ActiveGigE is not compatible with my camera?
ActiveGigE folder contains code samples in VB, C++, C#, Delphi, HTML, Matlab, but I am programming in Java. Can I still use your ActiveX control?
I like the way ActiveGigE's property pages look and I want to use them to control the properties of my camera in runtime. How can I open your property pages from my application?
Will ActiveGigE preserve high-bit depth information while saving 10-, 12-, 14- and 16-bpp images into files?
Can I display a live camera image in my PictureBox control?
Can I use ActiveGigE as a plain C SDK? I don't want to deal with ActiveX visual objects and MFC, and I would like to display images and control a camera by myself.
Can I combine ActiveGigE with Euresys Imaging Library or any other image processing SDK?
Do I have to purchase the Image Acquisition Toolbox from Mathworks to use GigE Vision cameras in Matlab?
What image processing functions does ActiveGigE SDK include?
Why does ActiveGigE have a better performance than other similar SDKs?
What are the limitations of the Trial version?
What is the difference between the development and run-time license?
How many GigE Vision devices are covered by one runtime license?
I have read both the documentation and FAQ, and I still have a question. What should I do?

1. I have a GigE Vision™ compatible camera, but I couldn't find it in your compatibility list. Will ActiveGigE work with my camera? ActiveGigE is designed to work with any digital camera that complies with GigE Vision Camera Interface Standard for Machine Vision, v 1.0 and higher.

2. I have an IP camera with an Ethernet interface. Can I use ActiveGigE with it? Ask the manufacturer of the camera about GigE Vision compliance. Many IP cameras only have physical Ethernet connection and they are not compliant with GigE Vision™ Specifications.

3. ActiveGigE reports 'No GigE Vision camera found' even though my GigE Vision™ camera is plugged and powered up. What is wrong? Most likely your network configuration is not correct. Refer to ActiveGigE and camera documentation for configuration instructions. Make sure you are able to run a viewer provided by the camera manufacturer.

4. ActiveGigE reports 'Possible mismatch of camera IP and network adapter IP'. What to do? You need to set the camera's IP address to the same subnet your network adapter is assigned to. Run our IP Configurator (GevConfig.exe), and it follow its suggestion on the Forced IP assignment. For more information refer to the Network Setup chapter of ActiveGigE documentation.

5. ActiveGigE sees the camera, but no video is displayed, even though the manufacturer's viewer displays the video with no problem. What is wrong? Make sure to disable the firewall in your system. If this doesn't help, set the packet size in GcamViewer settings to 1500.

6. ActiveGigE installation fails with the following error: 'ActiveGige.dll failed to register, HRESULT -2147024770'. What to do? Your operating system does not contain Runtimes components of Visual C++ 8.0 required by GenICam library. Install Microsoft's VC++ 2005 Redistributable Package, 32-bit and VC++ 2005 Redistributable Package, 64-bit, then run ActiveGigE installation again.

7. I am getting a corrupted video stream. Image is broken in parts or frozen. Why? Your network adapter or computer is not fast enough to support the camera bandwidth. Make sure to select the Jumbo option in your network adapter configuration settings and set the packet size for both network adapter and camera to at least 8000 bytes. If your adapter does not support Jumbo packets, you may need to replace it. At least 1GHz Pentium 4 system is required to handle GigE Vision™ data stream

8. How do I use multiple cameras at the same time? You should create two separate ActiveGigE objects and configure each for a different camera. Run our MultiGcam sample application to see video from multiple cameras. The easiest way to connect several cameras to your computer is using a Gigabit switch

9. Can I use two ActiveGigE objects to display video in two o more separate windows or different applications? No, you can, but you will have to activate the Multicast property in the first instance of ActiveGigE. This instance will have a full control over the camera. Other ActiveGigE instances connected to the same camera will be able to display video and read the camera features, but will not be able to control the camera.

10. My camera has a few proprietary features which are not shown in the GenICam tree. Is there any way to control these features with ActiveGigE? You can do it by using a direct access to GigE Vision™ registers. Non-standard features of your camera are typically associated with certain registers of the GigE Vision™ address space. The manufacturer should provide you with the specific information on the register address and data bit structure for each proprietary feature. Use ReadRegister and WriteRegister methods of ActiveDcam to control these features from your application.

11. I am trying to run your sample applications, and some of them don't work. Does this mean ActiveGigE is not compatible with my camera? No, it doesn't. Sample applications assume a presence of certain components (like .NET framework). If your system doesn't expose them, some sample executables might not work.

12. ActiveGigE folder contains code samples in VB, C++, C#, Delphi, HTML, Matlab, but I am programming in Java. Can I still use your ActiveX control? You can use ActiveGigE in any COM-aware environment. Our customers successfully integrated ActiveGigE into Java, VBA, Python and other applications. If you do not have any programming environment, you can simply insert ActiveGigE object into a Word or PowerPoint document and have live video from your camera embedded into your presentation.

13. I like the way ActiveGigE's property pages look and I want to use them to control the properties of my camera in runtime. How can I open your property pages from my application? You can do it by calling ShowProperties method in runtime.

14. Will ActiveGigE preserve high-bit depth information while saving 10-, 12-, 14- and 16-bpp images into files? Yes it will, but you have to use the TIF format.

15. Can I display a live camera image in my PictureBox control? ActiveGigE offers the GetPicture method that allows you to display an acquired image in standard graphic controls.

16. Can I use ActiveGigE as a plain C SDK? I don't want to deal with ActiveX visual objects and MFC, and I would like to display images and control a camera by myself. Yes, you can. Our GcamConsole and GcamWin sample projects demonstrate how to do it.

17. Can I combine ActiveGigE with Euresys Imaging Library or any other image processing SDK? ActiveGigE can be used in combination with any image processing SDK, such as MIL, Euresys, Sapera, OpenCV, Matlab. Just use one of ActiveGigE's image access methods (GetImageWindow, GetImagePointer) and use acquired frames as input data for Euresys functions.

18. Do I have to purchase the Image Acquisition Toolbox from Mathworks to use GigE Vision cameras in Matlab? No, you don't. ActiveGigE provides a direct interface to Matlab environment out-of-the-box.

19. What image processing functions does ActiveGigE SDK include? Background dark and bright field correction, hot pixel elimination, running average, built-in LUT's, color matrix, software gain and white balance adjustments, histogram and image statistics collection, lens distortion correction, 1D and 2D barcode recognition and many more.

20. Why does ActiveGigE have a better performance than other similar SDKs? Critical parts of our code is written in Assembly with the use of Intel's streaming SIMD extensions. In addition, a number of our functions use parallelization, so they are executed on multiple CPU cores. Last but not least, we use GPU for processor-intensive algoriths. As a result, the peformance of ActiveGigE can be twice is better than what you can get from a typical camera SDK.

21. What are the limitations of the Trial version? The trial version is fully functional for 21 days. It displays an embedded logo ActiveGigE Demo, which makes it consume more CPU power, but otherwise it supports all the functions of the commercial release.

22. What is the difference between the development and run-time license? You need a development license to develop your applications, and you need run-time licenses to run your applications. Our basic development license comes with two run-time licenses, allowing you to run your applications on a development machine and deploy them to another machine.

23. How many GigE Vision devices are covered by one runtime license? One runtime license covers one device. Additional runtime licenses are required for working with multiple devices. There is no limit on the amount of supported streams.

24. I have read both the documentation and FAQ, and I still have a question. What should I do? Fill out a form on our Support page. We will make the best effort to answer your questions within a few hours.