How to integrate multiple cameras with ImSwitch?

General
1

I am trying to build a microscope that can accommodate multiple cameras simultaneously and I was wondering if anybody could provide an example on how to do this using the ImSwitch library.

2

Hey @Derek8202, thanks a lot for reaching out to us! Integrating two cameras in ImSwitch is actually relatively simple. You can have a look at this example:


  "detectors": {
    "WidefieldCamera": {
      "ExtPackage": "imswitch_det_webcam",
      "analogChannel": null,
      "digitalLine": null,
      "managerName": "GXPIPYManager",
      "managerProperties": {
        "cameraListIndex": 1,
        "isRGB": 0,
        "cameraEffPixelsize": 0.327,
        "gxipycam": {
          "exposure": 20,
          "gain": 0,
          "blacklevel": 10,
          "image_width": 1000,
          "image_height": 1000,
          "flipX": true,
          "flipY": true
        }
      },
      "forAcquisition": true,
      "forFocusLock": true
    }, 
    "Observer": {
      "managerName": "OpenCVCamManager",
      "managerProperties": {
        "cameraListIndex": 1,
        "cameraListIndexWIN": 0,
        "cameraEffPixelsize":100,
        "cameraPixelSize":100,
        "isRGB":1,
        "opencvcam": {
          "exposure": 10
        }
      },
      "forAcquisition": false
    }
  },

Where there are two cameras, one overview camera (actually a USB web-camera) and the actual microscope camera. Both of them can be operated individually. If you want to retreive frames there is the snapImage function (e.g. via fastapi ImSwitch/imswitch/imcontrol/controller/controllers/RecordingController.py at 89e06ec2f3009f212970210c479e564ae7c10e5b · openUC2/ImSwitch · GitHub) that lets you choose the detector name you want to retreive the images from.

I hope that makes sense.