Balluff - BVS CA-MLC / BVS CA-IGC Technical Documentation
Driver concept

The driver supplied with the Balluff/MATRIX VISION product represents the port between the programmer and the hardware. The driver concept of Balluff provides a standardized programming interface to all image processing products made by Balluff GmbH.
The advantage of this concept for the programmer is that a developed application runs without the need for any major modifications to the various image processing products made by Balluff GmbH. You can also incorporate new driver versions, which are available for download free of charge on our website:
https://www.balluff.com.
The following diagram shows a schematic structure of the driver concept:

Driver concept
  • 1 Part of any Impact Acquire installation package (Windows).
  • 2 Separately available for 32 bit and 64 bit. Requires at least one installed driver package.
  • 3 See 2, but requires an installed version of the mvBlueFOX driver.
  • 4 Part of the NeuroCheck installer but requires at least one installed frame grabber driver.
  • 5 Part of the mvIMPACT SDK installation. However, new designs should use the .NET libs that are now part of Impact Acquire (mv.impact.acquire.dll). The namespace mv.impact.acquire of mv.impact.acquire.dll provides a more natural and more efficient access to the same features as contained in the deprecated namespace mvIMPACT_NET.acquire of mvIMPACT_NET.dll, which is why the latter one should only be used for backward compatibility but NOT when developing a new application.
  • 6 Part of Micro-Manager.

NeuroCheck Support

A couple of devices are supported by NeuroCheck. However between NeuroCheck 5.x and NeuroCheck 6.x there has been a breaking change in the internal interfaces. Therefore also the list of supported devices differs from one version to another and some additional libraries might be required.

For NeuroCheck 5.x the following devices are supported:

DeviceAdditional software needed
mvTITAN-G1mvSDK driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvTITAN-CLmvSDK driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvGAMMA-CLmvSDK driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvBlueFOXImpact Acquire driver for mvBlueFOX devices, NCUSBmvBF.dll

For NeuroCheck 6.0 the following devices are supported:

DeviceAdditional software needed
mvTITAN-G1Impact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvTITAN-CLImpact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvGAMMA-CLImpact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvHYPERION-CLbImpact Acquire driver for mvHYPERION devices
Every other Impact Acquire compliant deviceImpact Acquire driver for the corresponding device family, mv.impact.acquire.NeuroCheck6.dll (comes with the driver package, but the driver package must be installed AFTER installing NeuroCheck 6

For NeuroCheck 6.1 the following devices are supported:

DeviceAdditional software needed
mvTITAN-G1Impact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvTITAN-CLImpact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvGAMMA-CLImpact Acquire driver for mvTITAN/mvGAMMA devices
mvHYPERION-CLbImpact Acquire driver for mvHYPERION devices
Every other Impact Acquire compliant deviceImpact Acquire driver for the corresponding device family, mv.impact.acquire.NeuroCheck6_1.dll (comes with the driver package, but the driver package must be installed AFTER installing NeuroCheck 6.1

VisionPro Support

Every Impact Acquire driver package on Windows comes with an adapter to VisionPro from Cognex. The installation order does not matter. After the driver package and VisionPro has been installed, the next time VisionPro is started it will allow selecting the Impact Acquire device. No additional steps are needed.

Balluff/MATRIX VISION devices that also comply with the GigE Vision™ or USB3 Vision™ standard don't need any software at all, but can also use VisionPro's built-in GigE Vision™ or USB3 Vision™ support.

HALCON Support

HALCON comes with built-in support for Impact Acquire compliant devices, so once a device driver has been installed for the Impact Acquire device, it can also be operated from a HALCON environment using the corresponding acquisition interface. No additional steps are needed.

Balluff/MATRIX VISION devices that also comply with the GigE Vision™ standard don't need any software at all, but can also use HALCON's built-in GigE Vision™ support.

As some Impact Acquire device driver packages also come with a GenTL compliant interface, these can also be operated through HALCON's built-in GenTL acquisition interface.

LabVIEW Support

Every Impact Acquire compliant device can be operated under LabVIEW through an additional set of VIs which is shipped by Balluff as a separate installation (mvLabVIEW Acquire).

Balluff/MATRIX VISION devices that also comply with the GigE Vision™ or USB3 Vision™ standard don't need any additional software at all, but can also be operated through LabVIEW's GigE Vision™ or USB3 Vision™ driver packages.

DirectShow Support

Every Impact Acquire compliant device driver package comes with an interface to DirectShow. In order to be usable from a DirectShow compliant application, devices must first be registered for DirectShow support. How to this is explained here.

Micro-Manager Support

Every Impact Acquire compliant device can be operated under https://micro-manager.org when using Impact Acquire and at least Micro-Manager 1.4.23 build AFTER 15.12.2016. The adapter needed is part of the Micro-Manager release. Additional information can be found here: https://micro-manager.org/wiki/MatrixVision.