| Re: IDL and ActiveX CCD camera [message #31572] |
Fri, 02 August 2002 09:06  |
Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998
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Senior Member |
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If you have IDL5.5 I encourage you to try the new COM/ActiveX interface.
The only help you get from RSI is found in the "What's new in 55" pdf. Not
as much as one would like but enough to start doing some damage.
You'll need OLEview (available free from MS), some good documentation on the
camera side and some luck but in theory I think it should do the trick. It
will also help if you have the activeX control test container which ships
with Visual Studio. I have had mixed luck, but most of the bad luck was due
to non-existent documentation on the ActiveX control side.
Using OLEview, find your activeX control (maybe under automation objects).
Use OLEview to get the CLSID (required by IDL). If you have the activeX
control container use "Insert new control..." to create an instance of your
camera control. Then you can use the "invoke methods" dialog to explore the
methods. If you don't have the AX control container you can use OLEview to
get some basic into on the methods by using the TypeInfo viewer. Hopefully
the methods will be documented so this exercise will be academic.
At this point my experience with these two tools starts to wane so I go back
to IDL and start experimenting. Check out the examples in "what's new"
It would be helpful if you could report back to the group with your results
(or just to me if you are shy). Your experiences, bad or good, with the new
COM objects will help the 3 other IDL users who are trying to use them. :)
-Rick
"Brandon Jones" <bjones8@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2f8dde96.0208011556.24ecf9aa@posting.google.com...
> Hello-
>
> I am just getting started with IDL and was curious about its ActiveX
> functionality.
>
> I have a CCD camera that uses COM (ActiveX) interfaces for control.
> Would I be able to use these ActiveX controls from just within IDL?
>
> From reading the documentation it seems as if I need to use VB or VC++
> to control the CCD camera and call IDL from VB/VC++/LabView (I do not
> want to do this).
>
> I'd like to build an application that uses IDL for GUI (and everything
> else) but just uses the ActiveX controls to grab some images from the
> CCD, and preferably control the CCD camera.
>
> I want IDL to be the mothership, and not the slave :-)
>
> BTW I am using MaxIm DL for the CCD interfacing, which states:
> "Almost all of MaxIm DL and MaxIm CCD capabilties are available via
> the scripting interface. This interface is ASCOM comliant, and uses
> platform-independent COM (ActiveX) interfaces for compatibility with
> the built-in Windows scripting host and many programming languages."
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback (including, "you're crazy!")
>
> Brandon Jones
> Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department
> Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Science
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| Re: IDL and ActiveX CCD camera [message #31716 is a reply to message #31572] |
Fri, 02 August 2002 17:28  |
Mark Rivers
Messages: 49
Registered: February 2000
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Member |
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Rick Towler <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:aieao7$1urk$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> If you have IDL5.5 I encourage you to try the new COM/ActiveX interface.
> The only help you get from RSI is found in the "What's new in 55" pdf.
Not
> as much as one would like but enough to start doing some damage.
I have tried using the COM/ActiveX interface in IDL 5.5 to talk to CCD
cameras from Roper Scientific (formerly Princeton Instruments) using their
COM interface. Basically it does not work from IDL, while it works fine
from Visual Basic.
I have discussed the problem with technical folks from RSI and they
understand that the problem is on their end. Here is an extract from their
response to my problem report:
> ..., your example code pointed
> out some shortcomings in the COM data management of IDL 5.5, with
> respect to the Roper Scientific automation. Apparently, it's passing
> some parameters to and from the automation using some techniques
> that we hadn't anticipated. We'll attempt to address these in a future
> release of IDL. In particular, the ::GetFrame method won't work properly
> from IDL 5.5.
Mark Rivers
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| Re: IDL and ActiveX CCD camera [message #31717 is a reply to message #31572] |
Fri, 02 August 2002 16:03 |
bjones8
Messages: 6
Registered: August 2002
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Junior Member |
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Rick-
Thanks for the response, I do have IDL 5.5 and I reviewed the what's
new manual. It all looks very interesting. I don't have any
experience with COM object or ActiveX (or IDL just yet), however I
know it would be a very useful thing to learn.
I did figure out a way to use the camera by just using vbscipt,
running the script with the spawn command, and just using IDL to
modify the text in the script file to edit parameters. This is
cheating though...but works.
I think i'll spend some time investgating the method you outlined
since I'm up for learning something...
Thanks!
Brandon Jones
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department
Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Science
"Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message news:<aieao7$1urk$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu>...
> If you have IDL5.5 I encourage you to try the new COM/ActiveX interface.
> The only help you get from RSI is found in the "What's new in 55" pdf. Not
> as much as one would like but enough to start doing some damage.
>
> You'll need OLEview (available free from MS), some good documentation on the
> camera side and some luck but in theory I think it should do the trick. It
> will also help if you have the activeX control test container which ships
> with Visual Studio. I have had mixed luck, but most of the bad luck was due
> to non-existent documentation on the ActiveX control side.
>
> Using OLEview, find your activeX control (maybe under automation objects).
> Use OLEview to get the CLSID (required by IDL). If you have the activeX
> control container use "Insert new control..." to create an instance of your
> camera control. Then you can use the "invoke methods" dialog to explore the
> methods. If you don't have the AX control container you can use OLEview to
> get some basic into on the methods by using the TypeInfo viewer. Hopefully
> the methods will be documented so this exercise will be academic.
>
> At this point my experience with these two tools starts to wane so I go back
> to IDL and start experimenting. Check out the examples in "what's new"
>
>
> It would be helpful if you could report back to the group with your results
> (or just to me if you are shy). Your experiences, bad or good, with the new
> COM objects will help the 3 other IDL users who are trying to use them. :)
>
>
> -Rick
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