IP Configuration Utility

Provided with ActiveGigE is the camera IP configuration utility. Normally, a camera's IP address has a factory setting in the 169.254.x.x class B range. In this case you should follow the Network Setup instructions to property configure your network adapter. However, there might be when the camera IP needs to be changed, for example when multiple cameras are connected to several network cards. You can also have a situation when your camera becomes "invisible" due to the IP address mismatch between the camera and network card. The IP configuration utility can locate the camera on the network and modify its IP address for the proper operation.

To start the IP configuration utility run "gevconfig.exe" from ActiveGigE working folder. You can also run it through the Windows Start Menu: Start -> All Programs -> ActiveGigE -> IP Configurator. The following user interface will be displayed:

IP Tab



The upper window displays the list of all GigE Vision cameras currently found in the network. If there are more than one cameras, select the one you want to reconfigure. The current camera configuration information will appear on the right. If the IP of the selected camera doesn't match the TCP/IP settings of your network card, the IP configurator will ask you to assign the camera a temporary (forced) IP address with parameters matching the subnet mask and IP address of your network card.

Once the current IP address of the camera is set to a proper value, the IP configurator can proceed with changing a permanent IP address of the camera. The following options are available:

DHCP - the camera will reset its IP address automatically using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. The IP address will be assigned in the 169.254.x.x class B range.

LLA - the camera will reset its IP address automatically using the Link Local Address (Auto IP). The IP address will be assigned in the 169.254.x.x class B range.

Persistent IP - the IP address is assigned manually by entering the desired parameters in the test boxes. When using this option make sure that the IP Address and Subnet Mask of the camera match the corresponding parameters of the network card.

After selecting the desired option, click the Change IP configuration button. The camera should reset itself and the updated IP information should appear in the Current Configuration pane on the right. Note that some cameras require resetting the power in order for the new IP configuration to take effect.

Before assigning the camera a Persistent IP it is recommended to try it as a temporary (forced) IP address. The camera will revert to the previous IP once the power is reset. Note that some cameras may not support the temporary IP address.


GigE Tab



The left pane displays the settings of the Broadcast channel which is used for monitoring and discovering a presence of GigE Vision cameras on the network. ActiveGigE periodically sends the discovery request throughout the network and collects the information about all cameras that respond to this message in time. The following options are available:

Period, ms - the interval in milliseconds at which ActiveGigE sends discovery requests looking for GigE Vision cameras on the network. If this value is set to a large number (such as 1000000), the discovery request will be sent only once upon the start of an application. This is a recommended scenario when the application is not required to monitor the presence of cameras on the fly. The default value of the broadcast period is 1500 ms.

Timeout, ms - the interval in milliseconds during which ActiveGigE waits for responses from GigE Vision cameras after each discovery broadcast. Decreasing this time will make your application to initialize quicker, but it may prevent the discovery of some cameras especially in case of multiple cameras on the network. A recommended time for a single-camera setup is 200-300 ms, for multiple cameras - 600-1000 ms.

Attempts - the number of discovery requests used by ActiveGigE to determine that a camera was removed from the network. When a new camera responds to the discovery message, ActiveGigE immediately adds it to the list of connected cameras. However, it contains a safety mechanism which prevents it from immediately removing a camera from the list in case there was no response, because it may be caused by an accidental lost of a packet in the network. This parameter defines the number of discovery attempts that will be made by ActiveGigE before it will consider the camera disconnected.

The central pane displays the settings for the Control channel which is used to obtain and modify camera parameters. The following options are available:

Heartbeat, ms - the interval at which ActiveGigE sends the heartbeat signal to the camera. A GigE Vision camera uses the heartbeat signal as an indication that the application remains in a control of the camera. Once the application closes and the heartbeat sequence stops coming to the camera, it frees itself to another process. In some situations such as a trigger acquisition you may want to set the heartbeat interval to a large value to decrease the network traffic. If this value is set to 0 (default), the heartbeat period will be equal to 1/4 of the internal camera timeout setting which can be changed by modifying the value of hardware register 0x0938 (see WriteRegister).

Timeout, ms - the interval in milliseconds during which ActiveGigE waits for a response from the camera after sending a command. For example, when you move the Exposure slider in the Property Pages, the application sends a series of commands to a corresponding camera register, and each command must be acknowledged by the camera before the application can send the next command, in order to maintain the synchronization between the application and camera. The default value for this parameter is 200 ms, but some cameras have a slower response and may require using a larger timeout.

Attempts - the number of times ActiveGigE will try to send the same command to the camera. If the camera fails to respond in time (timeout) on all of the attempts, ActiveGigE will raise an error. The default value for this parameter is 5.

The right pane displays the settings for the Stream channel which is used to transmit video from cameras to ActiveGigE.

Resends - the number of attempts that ActiveGigE will make to request a missing video packet. GigE Vision cameras use the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to send the video through the network. UDP guarantees that the video is delivered with no delays, but it is inherently unreliable in terms of the packet loss. If ActiveGigE detects a missing packet, it will send a resend request to the camera asking it to retransmit the missing packet. You may want to disable this feature on slow systems to prevent the network socket from further clogging. The default value for this parameter is 3.

Timeout, ms - the interval in milliseconds during which ActiveGigE will await for a video packet from the camera after sending a resend request.

Multicast Address - the destination IP address used for the Multicast streaming. Per UDP requirements, the range of multicast addresses for local networks must be 239.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255. The default value for this parameter is 239.0.0.1