Configuring HIK Vision Cameras

Calibration kits delivered since 2021 (discontinued in 2024)

Older VIOSO Calibration Kits arebased on a HiK Robotics IP camera camera. It comes with the camera body, a suitable lens, and a PoE-Injector for running the camera on any switch or directly from the PC/server.

Overview about Calibration kits based on HiK cameras:

Calibration Kit	Description	Camera Body	Interface	Sensor size	Resolution	Lens
CK_W(xx)	Wideangle calibration kit	HiK CA Series	GigE	1/1.8”	3072 x 2048	89,0° x 73,8° 76,0° x 60,8° 56,8° x 44,0°
CK_WU(xx)	Ultra Wideangle calibration kit	HiK CA Series	GigE	1/1.8”	3072 x 2048	135,0° x 119,0° 110,0° x 94,0°
CK_T(xx)	Tele calibration kit	HiK CA Series	GigE	1/1.8”	3072 x 2048	44,7° x 33,9° 28,9° x 21,9°
CK_VF	Varifocal calibration kit	HiK CA Series	GigE	1/1.8”	3072 x 2048	97,3° x 71,5° – 28,2° x 21,2°
CK_FDN	Fulldome calibration kit	HiK CA Series	GigE	1”	2592 x 2048	365,00° x 185,00°

Installing

1. Connecting the camera

Mount the camera and connect camera to PoE injector and the PoE injector to the network and power.

(a) PoE (Power Over Ethernet)/DATA: Connect the camera to this socket (this will power the camera and a small light will flicker).

(b) DATA: Connect the Ethernet cable to the PC/server or to a switch.

The camera requires a stable 1Gb/s ethernet connection. 100MB/s won’t work!

We strongly recommend running the camera directly to the PC. Therefore, VIOSO servers usually come with 2 dedicated Ethernet ports. Please note that during calibration the camera creates a large amount of data, occupying the whole network bandwidth and therefore should not be shared with other network based applications (e.g. remote access).

2. Install the driver package “MVS”

1. Download: https://vioso.com/download/hik-driver-software-mvs/

2. Install driver:

3. Install DirectShow Interface

Run as Admin:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MVS\Development\ThirdPartyPlatformAdapter\DirectShow\x64\MvDSS2\InstallDSSvc_x64.bat

For x86 systems, run the same files from \x86 folder instead.

4. Network configuration

1. Make sure that the camera is connected and powered (PowerLED “blue”)

2. Run the application “MVS”.

   • If the camera is connected, it shows within the “GigE” tree under the network adapter.

   • If the network adapter is set to DHCP, the camera gets an address starting with “169.254…”. In this case it is required to reconfigure the network interface to a static IP. Right-Click the network adaptor and select “NIC Settings”
   • In the window “NIC Configurator” click “Internet protocol properties” to access the Windows network settings. Change to static IP setting and enter an appropriate IP (e.g. 10.0.0.1 / 255.0.0.0 for a point-to-point connection). If the network already is set to a fixed IP, you can skip this step. Terminate everything with “OK” and “Apply”.

     
   • Right-Click on the camera name and open the “Modify IP Address” dialog. Enter an IP that fits to the IP range entered for this ethernet connection (e.g. 10.0.0.2 according to the example above)

   • This way the camera has a fixed IP, that will make all subsequent tasks for calibration more transparent.

Camera Configuration

All settings of the camera can be done in the “MVS” software. It is a complex tool, allowing a lot of settings to be made. But we recommend to stick to some very fundamental settings only, leaving as much as possible untreated. All settings that are done by the MVS software are persistent in the camera.

Once the camera network configuration is complete, the camera icon gets green, indicating that the camera is ready to be operated. Launch the preview by double clicking the camera and press the “Play” Button in the top button bar to display a live camera image.

Now it’s time to switch off all ambient light sources and have the projectors powered on. Use the live view to position the cameras while filming the projection surface. The projectors should display a solid color (ideally white) so that the camera can be set to an appropriate sensitivity.

Common parameters

Switch to the tab “Common Functions” to handle the most important parameters of the camera sensor:

• Acquisition Framerate: Deactivate

• Exposure Auto: always set to OFF! For the first time, you can set it to “once” to get an initial value of auto-exposure and start seeing a bright image, then turn it back off.

• Exposure time: Set to a value that matches with the brightness of the filmed scene. By setting the exposure, the framerate automatically adapts accordingly. Please evaluate the exposure when projectors are displaying bright content, filling all the projection area.

• Gain: Always leave set to 0. Driving the camera brightness using digital gain often has a bad impact on the scanning stability.

• Gamma Enable: OFF/ON – if the camera image is too dark, enable Gamma and use either of the selectors to change to an appropriate level. Try to maintain a high contrast when setting a user defined gamma value.

Image cropping for Fisheye calibration kits

Switch to the tab “Image Properties” to crop the image. By reducing the image size, e.g. cropping unnecessary parts of the image, the frame rate can be increased, this speeding up the scanning procedure.

• Draw ROI [Edit]: Starts an interactive drawing tool that helps positioning the region of interest onto the current camera image. By dragging and resizing, the values for Offset X/Y and size of the ROI are adjusted. Click the “confirm” icon at the bottom right corner of the rectangle to activate the region of interest, thus cropping the other parts of the image

• Restore Max. ROI: resets all settings so that the whole image is used

Example: To set the ROI of a fulldome calibration kit to match the fisheye lens, set…

• Width = 2048

• Offset = 256

User settings

Even though all settings made in the MVS software are immediately stored inside the camera, it is still possible to handle multiple sets of configurations. This “User Control sets” menu is accessible from the top right button bar. Usually it is not required to handle several parameter settings, but if there is a demanding situation the usage of several user sets can help to maintain a well-controlled workflow.

You can also set “Start Settings” to be your specified User Set if you experience problems of camera losing its setting on reboots or after unplug/replugs.

Notes about Multi-Camera usage:

• In MVS, when switching between cameras views, stop acquisition on the previous first or you will have bandwidth error warnings.

• In VIOSO MRD window (Model View Control) you might not see the camera full name in the dropdown menu. To check if it’s the right camera assigned, open the MRD file you created in a text editor. It is in XML format where defCamName parameter refers to the camera that calibrated the selected compound.

• Optional tip: It can be helpful to fix camera custom names in MVS (Right Click the camera > Rename User ID ). They will appear in VIOSO under “adjust camera > Options > Camera info”