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Installation

Two things are needed on the machine: the GenTL producer of the camera vendor, and the Datastead GenICam Vision Source itself.

1. The GenTL producer (.cti)

The filter is a generic GenTL consumer and does not include any vendor transport layer. Install the camera vendor's driver or SDK, which provides the .cti producer: for Allied Vision cameras, install Vimba X first, VimbaUSBTL.cti is then detected automatically and only needs to be selected once in the Device page. See GenTL producer (.cti).

The Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64) must also be present (VC_redist.x64.exe is included in the package, under Install_Manually\).

2. The Datastead GenICam Vision Source

The package contains:

Item Description
Install_Automatically\DatasteadGenICamAutoInstaller.exe the self-installer: copies the filter and its DLLs to a permanent location and registers the capture device
Install_Manually\x64\Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax the 64-bit filter, with its runtime DLLs and the _REGISTER_FILTER.cmd / _UNREGISTER_FILTER.cmd scripts
Install_Manually\VC_redist.x64.exe the Visual C++ 2015-2022 x64 Redistributable
License_Agreement.html the license terms

64-bit only

The package ships the 64-bit (x64) filter. The host application and the GenTL producer must be 64-bit too: a 32-bit DirectShow application does not see the device.

  1. Run Install_Automatically\DatasteadGenICamAutoInstaller.exe (right-click, Run as administrator).
  2. The installer copies the filter and its DLLs to a permanent location and registers the capture device.
  3. Open the DirectShow host: the device Datastead GenICam Vision Source now appears in the list of video capture devices.

Option B: manual install

Keep the .ax and its DLLs together

Keep the filter .ax and all the DLLs of the Install_Manually\x64 folder together, in a permanent folder. The host process resolves the DLLs at run time; the folder of the .ax is not searched automatically, so that folder must stay in place (or its DLLs must be reachable through the system PATH).

  1. Copy the whole Install_Manually\x64 folder to a permanent location, e.g. C:\Program Files\Datastead\GenICam Vision Source.
  2. In that folder, run _REGISTER_FILTER.cmd (right-click, Run as administrator). It registers Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax with regsvr32.
  3. Open the DirectShow host: the Datastead GenICam Vision Source capture device is now available.

To remove the filter, run _UNREGISTER_FILTER.cmd from the same folder (as administrator).

Runtime DLLs

The DLLs shipped beside the .ax are the GenICam reference implementation (GCBase, GenApi, Log, log4cpp, MathParser, NodeMapData, XmlParser, all _MD_VC141_v3_4), rc_genicam_api.dll (the GenTL consumer), libpng16.dll and zlib.dll. They must all stay next to the .ax, or be reachable through the PATH of the host process. The vendor .cti is not part of the package: it comes with the camera driver.

Multiple cameras

The filter can expose up to four capture entries, one per enumerated GenICam device: with several entries, they are named Datastead GenICam Vision Source 1, ... 2, and so on. The automatic installer registers a single entry. To publish several entries with a manual install, register with:

regsvr32 /n /i:"3" Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax   :: 3 entries
regsvr32 Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax             :: 1 entry (default)
regsvr32 /u Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax          :: unregister everything

The entry count is persisted in the registry under HKCU\Software\Datastead\DtstdGenicam (CameraCount).

Uninstall

Run _UNREGISTER_FILTER.cmd as administrator (manual install), or regsvr32 /u Datastead_GenICam_x64.ax from the installation folder, then delete the folder.