Balluff - BVS CA-GT Technical Documentation
Linux

Requirements

Additional packages will be needed to use all features of Impact Acquire.

Compiler etc. for building applications:

  • build-essential (meta package)
  • gcc 5.5.0 environment or newer
  • cmake 3.10 or newer

Additional packages (mandatory) for running applications:

  • OpenMP runtime

wxWidget release 3.0 or 3.2 packages, e.g.

  • libwxbase3.0-0v5
  • libwxbase3.0-dev
  • libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-0v5
  • libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev
  • libwxgtk-webview3.0-gtk3-0v5
  • libwxgtk-webview3.0-gtk3-dev
  • wx3.0-headers
  • libgtk2.0-dev
Note
The names of the packages mentioned above are Debian / Ubuntu specific. Other distributions (e.g. SuSE, Arch, Redhat, ...) will use different names.

The installation script will ask if the packages should be downloaded during the installation process. If some of the packages are not installed some features might not be available. If the e.g. wxWidgets related packages are missing on the target system then all GUI application coming as part of the Impact Acquire installation won't be available.

Installation

Note
If you are going to install the Impact Acquire package on an ARM device, please read this section first.

To use a (camera) device in Linux (capture images from it and change its settings), a software stack is needed, consisting of several libraries and several configuration files. These files are required during runtime.

To develop applications that can use the device, an API containing header files, makefiles, samples, and a few libraries is needed. These files are required at compile time.

Both file collections are distributed in a single package which is available in the Download section of the Balluff website. This package is distributed as a single installer script (e.g. ImpactAcquire-x86_64-linux-3.5.0.sh). The script contains everyhing needed to install ImpactAcquire.

The following table shows the supported platforms and the corresponding installation script name:

ArchitecturePackage
ARM64ImpactAcquire-arm64-linux-3.5.0.sh
ARMhfImpactAcquire-armhf-linux-3.5.0.sh
x86_64ImpactAcquire-x86_64-linux-3.5.0.sh

The following example explains the installation process for the x86_64 package. The installation process for other packages will work almost identically except that different names are used, as mentioned in the previous table.

  • Please start a console and change into the directory where the installation script is located e.g. /home/username/Downloads :
    cd /home/username/Downloads 
    Note
    If root permissions are needed, the script will ask for the permissions. There is no need to call it with root permissions.
  • You might need to enable the execute flag with:
    chmod a+x ImpactAcquire-x86_64-linux-3.5.0.sh
  • Run the install script:
    ./ImpactAcquire-x86_64-linux-3.5.0.sh

During installation, the script will ask if it should build all tools and samples.

Note
The installation script has been developed for Ubuntu/Debian, SUSE Linux and Red Hat Linux based distributions. On other distributions some features of the installation script may or may not work. Get in touch with us if you encounter any problems!

The installation script checks for package dependencies described above and installs them with the respective standard package manager (e.g. apt-get) if necessary. So an Internet connection is recommended.

Note
  • Nothing is written to the directory containing the script during execution, so no write access to the directory is needed in order to execute the script.
  • In case one or more of the packages the Impact Acquire framework depends on are not yet installed on your system, the script tries to install the missing packages. Therefore, when something is missing, Internet access is required during the installation.

Installation Options

The script supports various arguments for customizing the installation, the desired functionality and the installation process itself. All arguments are optional:

ArgumentFunctionNotes
-h
--help
Display the help.
-p
--path
Define a custom installation directory.The target directory name specifies where to place the software package. If the directory does not yet exist, it will be created. The path can be either absolute or relative; i.e. the name may but need not start with / .
If no path is specified, the package will be installed to /opt/ImpactAcquire.
-a=
--add=
<tech1>[,<tech2>]..
Install features supporting the given technologies.See table below for possible values for the 'tech' parameter.
-e=
--exclude=
<tech1>[,<tech2>],..
Do not install features supporting the given technologies.
-py
--python_support
Compile the Python wrapper and install the required dependencies. Once a version number is passed to this parameter, the installation script will try to install this particular version, if possible.e.g. --python_support=3.9
-r
--remove
Remove the previously installed version for ALL devices, if found.Defaults to no or yes if a 2.x.x installation is found on the system.
-x
--extract
Extract the embedded files as a tgz archive, testing the checksum, but do not install anything.
-u
--unattended
Unattended installation with default settings.By using this parameter the EULA will be accepted automatically.
-m
--minimal
Minimal installation. No tools or samples will be built, and no automatic configuration and/or optimizations will be done.
-rt
--runtime
Minimal installation. No tools or samples will be built.

Possible values for the 'tech' parameter when using '-a', '–add', '-e' and '–exclude':

Value for <tech>DescriptionWill be installed by default?
gev GigE Vision™.yes
u3v USB3 Vision™.
pcie BVS CA-BN (mvBlueNAOS) PCIe camera.
usb2 BVS CA-MLC/BVS CA-IGC (mvBlueFOX) USB2 camera.
vdev Virtual Device.no