Balluff - mvVirtualDevice Technical Documentation
macOS
Since
Version 2.50.0 of this framework

Impact Acquire is available as a dmg (Apple disk image) on ARM64-based Macs like the Mac mini M1 to M4. Up to version 3.6.x, Impact Acquire was available for at least macOS 12 (Monterey). Starting from version 3.7.0, the minimum supported macOS version is macOS 14 (Sonoma). This disk image contains files for working with a subset of Balluff devices and a simple installation script, but does not contain a full installer.

Note
Up to version 3.6.x, the Impact Acquire package on macOS only supports Balluff GigE Vision™ devices. Starting from Impact Acquire 3.7.0, USB3 Vision™ devices are also supported. For further information please see Device And Operating System Support Across Released Versions.

Quickstart

  • With a double-click on ImpactAcquire-ARM64_macOS-3.7.0.dmg , the disk image is mounted like an external disk below the /Volumes folder, and a window opens displaying the end-user license agreement.
  • After agreeing, the contained folders and files are displayed in a (read-only) Finder window.
  • For unmounting the disk image, find the mounted disk icon on the desktop and eject it. Closing the window showing the contents of Impact Acquire does not unmount the disk image.

Package Content

The package contains:

  • Basically the same structure and content as for Linux, but so far only with support for GigE Vision™ and virtual devices:
    • apps
    • bin
    • CMake
    • common
    • doc
    • DriverBase
    • FirmwareUpdates
    • lib
    • LogFileViewer
    • mvDeviceManager
    • mvIMPACT_CPP
    • mvPropHandling
    • runtime
    • Toolkits
  • An installation script install_local_ImpactAcquire.sh for creating a local copy of Impact Acquire.

Installation Script

For installing the package contents locally into your user profile, open a Terminal window, enter cd /Volumes/[NameOfTheDmgWithoutExtension] (e.g. cd /Volumes/ImpactAcquire-ARM64_3.7.0), and start bash script install_local_ImpactAcquire.sh . This script copies all files into a subfolder to the user's home folder (~/ImpactAcquire), and the user's .bashrc file is extended by calling a script setting all necessary environment variables. These changes will automatically become effective after the next start of a terminal.

Initial Operation

After copying to the local user folder (usually ~/ImpactAcquire ), Bash scripts for starting the three applications are provided: startImpactControlCenter.sh, startIPConfigure.sh and startDeviceConfigure.sh, but they may also be started from a terminal or script like this:

  • ImpactControlCenter as
    $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/bin/ImpactControlCenter.app/Contents/MacOS/ImpactControlCenter
  • IPConfigure as
    $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/bin/IPConfigure.app/Contents/MacOS/IPConfigure
  • DeviceConfigure as
    $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/bin/DeviceConfigure.app/Contents/MacOS/DeviceConfigure
    For more information about these tools, see here.

Be aware that:

  • For this version, homebrew must be installed as well as a few packages that can be installed using homebrew:
    • libexpat is necessary for all modules
    • libomp is necessary for several modules
    • For using the GUI-based tools, wxWidgets 3.3 should be installed
    • libusb is necessary for USB3 Vision™ devices
  • All scripts available with Impact Acquire are for bash(the Bourne-Again Shell)), and not for the default Z shell.
  • The following environment variables have to be set:
    • MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR pointing to the folder where all Impact Acquire folders reside
    • GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH pointing to $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/lib/arm64
    • GENICAM_ROOT pointing to $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/runtime
  • Environment variable MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DATA_DIR is assumed to be pointing to a folder with write access. This folder will later contain the following subfolders:
    • logs (a folder that contains the camera log files. Copying file $MVIMPACT_ACQUIRE_DIR/apps/mvDebugFlags.mvd here allows logging to be configured)
    • GenICam (a folder for storing GenICam™ files of cameras)
    • GenICam/Cache_V3_5 (A folder for caching GenICam™ XML files of cameras for saving time when opening them)
  • When compiling the shipped example programs from source code, CMake has to be available on the system. If the installed wxWidgets version does not allow starting the GUI tools, re-compiling might be necessary. CMake usage is described here

Balluff imaging devices should now be usable.