Best practices to ensure optimal performance of a single-camera 10GigE vision system

Understanding how to configure a 10GigE single-camera system is a worthwhile skill to learn across a range of technical professions. Whether you're an experienced engineer, building a 10GigE vision system, or just tech-minded, in this article we'll look at best practices and techniques for setting up a single-camera 10GigE system.

Please note: this article has been written in March 2024 and published in the Adept Turnkey Machine Vision newsletter in May 2024. All technical details reference the technology as it stands at this time, and given the rate of advancement in this area, the advice may have changed at some short time in the future. Please contact Adept Turnkey for current advice at time of reading if required.

CPU
Reassembling Ethernet packets into image data on a PC uses only a fraction of the CPU's processing capacity. However, vision applications usually extend far beyond image capture and storage. To ensure adequate processing power for real-time image analysis using an Intel® Core™ i7 CPU or greater is a good decision.

Mass Storage
To stream data from an Oryx camera via its 10GigE interface, mass storage is essential to manage the bandwidth. The SATA 3.0 mass storage interface delivers a maximum bandwidth of 6 GBit/sec. To stream at full bandwidth using SATA Hard Disk Drives or Solid State Drives (SSDs), a RAID array of two or more SATA 3.0 disks is required.

Most recent motherboards are compatible with M.2 SSDs. The M.2 standard employs either a PCIe 2.0 x4 or PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and offers sufficient bandwidth to match that of a 10GigE camera. However, the sequential write speed remains constrained by flash memory technology. As of early 2018, the Samsung NVMe SM951 series stands out as the M.2 SSD with the highest write speed, achieving a sequential write speed of 5.2 Gbit/sec.

Memory Bandwidth
10 Gbit/sec is a significant amount of data so adequate memory bandwidth is crucial for reliable operation of a 10GigE camera system. Employing a dual-channel memory configuration guarantees the availability of sufficient bandwidth for receiving incoming packets, assembling them into images, and processing them in a vision application.

If you have any further questions, please contact us and we'll be happy to help.

Instead of a single large DIMM, consider opting for two smaller DIMMs that collectively meet the required memory capacity. This approach doubles memory bandwidth by configuring system memory in a dual-channel setup. Motherboards colour-code memory channels, facilitating straightforward installation. The speed and capacity of memory modules in dual-channel configurations should match. Many memory manufacturers offer dual-channel kits for this purpose.

While your system should detect and activate a dual-channel memory configuration automatically, it's advisable to confirm and enable this setup in the BIOS if required.

Systems that support triple and quad-channel configurations are also available. While the additional memory bandwidth of these systems will not improve the performance of 10GigE cameras, they may speed up memory and CPU-intensive vision processing applications. The current DDR4 memory standard (as at the time this article has been written) is recommended, as it provides greater memory bandwidth than older technologies.

Software Development Kit (SDK)
It is recommended to use the latest version of Teledyne FLIR’s Spinnaker for 10GigE vision systems. Spinnaker will ensure your system always has the latest features and performance enhancements.

Increasing the Stream Default Buffer Count creates more software buffers. This will improve system performance at the expense of consuming system memory. Buffer size is proportional to image size, so stream buffers for higher-resolution cameras will require more memory.

PCIe Slot Configuration
The PCIe slot in which the Network Interface Card (NIC) is plugged into can have significant impact on system performance. It is recommended to plug the 10GigE NIC into the PCIe slot closest to the CPU as not all motherboards can deliver full bandwidth to all PCIe slots.

PCIe slots may share bandwidth with other peripherals such as USB ports or other PCIe devices. To determine which PCIe slots operate at full bandwidth, please see the detailed specifications in your motherboard’s user guide.


If you have any further questions, please contact us and we'll be happy to help.

NIC Settings
Jumbo frames reduce the load on the CPU by reducing the number of packets that must be reassembled into an image. NICs and switches used to connect 10GigE cameras should support 9K jumbo frames.

As 10GBASE-T is increasingly adopted for consumer products, a wide range of NICs has become available. Third-party testing has shown that not all 10GBASE-T NICs can deliver the full 10GigE bandwidth.

The ACC-01-1106 or ACC-01-1107 from Teledyne FLIR sold by Adept Turnkey has been thoroughly tested and validated for use with the Oryx camera.

Best Practices for cabling
Coiling ethernet cables that are longer than needed may result in connectivity issues, or automatically down-rating link between the camera and the host from 10GigE to GigE. This is due to interference between adjacent coils. The effect will be more prominent with CAT5e than CAT6A due to the additional shielding of CAT6A. Tight bends in CAT5e cables may also result in signal quality issues. RJ45 couplers should not be used.

For distances less than 30 meters, CAT5e will support a 10GigE link speed. For distances greater than 30m, CAT6A should be used. CAT6A cables have more robust shielding than CAT5e and may work better over short distances in environments prone to electromagnetic interference.

Best practices for FLIR camera settings
Oryx can be used in multi-camera systems with other Teledyne FLIR Oryx 10GigE cameras or with GigE cameras like the Teledyne FLIR Blackfly S and Forge 5GigE.

To ensure reliable performance, the available interface bandwidth must be shared between the cameras. Exceeding the bandwidth of the interface between the switch and the host will result in packet loss and dropped frames.

The recommended method for setting camera bandwidth limits is with the Device Link Throughput Limit control. Once the Device Link Throughput is set, the camera will restrict the maximum frame rate to ensure it does not exceed its allocated bandwidth.

Need more information on single camera 10GigE Vision systems? Please email Adept Turnkey or call our offices
Adept Turnkey Pty Ltd are Machine Vision and Imaging Specialists and distributor for Teledyne FLIR in Australia and New Zealand. To learn more about Teledyne FLIR or setting up a single vision 10 GigE camera system, please contact us or call us at Perth (08) 9242 5411 / Sydney (02) 9979 2599 / Melbourne (03) 9384 1775.