XVision Supported Platforms

General Information
In order to run XVision, you need to satisfy three requirements:

  • You need to be running a supported OS.
  • You need to have access to data, either in the form of a video digitizing hardware, or stored files such as MPEGS. If you are using a digitizer, you need a device and or device driver that is capable of delivering field/frame rate data in some fashion or another. You also need to have an interface to XVision which supports your device.
  • You need some way of supporting the display of image data. Currently, this means XWindows.
None of these requirements are fundamental to the system, however until someone ports the system to other platforms, it is unlikely to change.

Older versions of XVision compiled under almost everything. Since we've started to use more templates, this is no longer true. Currently, the two reliable compilers are SGI's Delta C++ Compiler and Gnu's g++. With some tweaks, it is possible to compile using Sun solaris and HP-UX compilers.

 PC-based Platforms
Currently, all PC-based support requires running the Linux operating system. Developing a stable port of XVision to Windows or the MacOS remains a project to be done. The following is a list of supported devices and, when relevant, who to contact to get associated device drivers. Below we list several devices that have been used with XVision. The Linux hardware how-to give pointers to other devices and/or drivers which work with Linux.

     -Data Translations 3155 (Monochrome)-

Alfred Rizzi and Greg Hager teamed up to write a device driver for this device. A version which operates under Linux 2.0.xx is currently available by contacting Nomadics Inc. The XVision interface is supported by us and comes with the system release.

     -Data Translations 3153 (Color)-

We are currently working on developing a driver for this device. Stay tuned for more information.

     -Matrox Meteor (Color)-

Information on this card can be found at http://www.matrox.com/imgweb/meteor.htm.
Drivers for FreeGSD and Linux can be found at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~bah6f/matrox.
We use this device with a PC running Linux, and it performs very well. An XVision interface for this framegrabber, which is built on top of the Linux driver for the card, is included in release 1.3.

     -Imaging Technologies MVP system with AM-CLR (Color)-

A group at the TU Braunschweig (contact D. Bergmann) does support a Linux driver for the MVP system, but at the moment, there is no good support for the AM-CLR module although it is in use by various groups at Siemens Central Research, and the University of Vienna. A good contact is Markus Vincze at the Technical University of Vienna.

Workstation Support
We've used the system on a variety of workstations with various devices. Here's list and associated comments.

     -Silicon Graphics-

  • VINO (Color)
    An XVision interface for SGI systems with VINO digitizing devices is included in the system release. It was developed at Yale and works quite well on Indys. Oddly, the Indigo II's do not work well at all (getting and displaying image data is quite slow) due to their hardware architecture.

  • Galileo (Color)
    An interface for this device has been written and is included, but is out of date. In general the galileo device is a bit slow due to the method it uses to transfer data to the host.

     -Sun-

      -HP-

  • Matrox MAGIC
    At one point we developed interface to an HP 735-99 with this digitizer. Due to the bus architecture of the system, the performance of the was rather marginal, but does work.
File-based Operation
The base system includes the following two possibilities for getting input.

     -PGM-based file sequences-

This is a rudimentary interface assuming you have a set of data files with a number containing a sequential numbering scheme. PGM format is currently the only format supported.

     -MPEG-based sequences-

Kinh Tieu has recently written an MPEG-based interface based on a portable MPEG library due to Greg Ward. Both are included with the system.

Back to the XVision home page.
Comments to hager@cs.jhu.edu

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