When not re-distributing the original Impact Acquire installation packages an application might need certain environment variables in order to run properly. As not every possible setup needs any of the variables described here, they will not be created by default, but must be added as needed to a custom client installer. This chapter briefly explains all environment variables that are important when deploying a Impact Acquire based application.

Common Environment Variables

MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR

The MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR variable is needed by some applications in order to locate certain files. E.g. GigEConfigure will use this variable to locate the GigE Vision™ capture driver when the tool is used to install the driver. Also the mvDeviceManager library needs it in order to set up some process local environment variables relative to it. Thus without this variable GenICam™ compliant devices (mvBlueCOUGAR, mvBlueFOX3) cannot be operated. The variable must point to the root folder of the Impact Acquire related modules.

MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DATA_DIR

The MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DATA_DIR variable is needed in order to setup the cache path for GenICam™ XML files. The folder pointed to should provide read AND write access for the user. The required folder structure below this folder should look like this:

  MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DATA_DIR
    |- GenICam     <-- Here pre-processed GenICam files will be stored by the runtime. This will speed up initialisation time of devices

BVS CA-GT, mvBlueCOUGAR, mvBlueFOX3, BVS CA-BN

GENICAM_GENTL32_PATH

The GENICAM_GENTL32_PATH variable is needed for reasons described in the GenICam™ GenTL specification (see GenICam™ downloads on the EMVA homepage (http://www.emva.org) to get a copy of the latest version OR use the one provided together with the installation archive you have installed the framework on your development system from). An application should always check whether this variable already exists as other applications might register it as well. Therefore every application shall only APPEND data to existing variables and shall only remove the part that was added without necessarily deleting the full variable. The variable shall contain the path to the folder containing 32-bit versions of *.cti (see above) files (typically located in the bin folder of the folder pointed to by MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR.

GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH

The GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH variable is needed for the very same reasons as the GENICAM_GENTL32_PATH variable when working with 64-bit applications and has the same requirements.