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SDK Installation

Requirements

Aurora Vision Library Lite is designed to be a part of applications working under control of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Supported versions are: 7, 8 and 10, as well as the corresponding embedded editions.

To build an application using Aurora Vision Library Lite, Microsoft Visual Studio environment is required. Supported versions are: 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Aurora Vision Library Lite can be also used on Linux operating system with GCC compiler - for details consult Using SDK on Linux article.

Running the Installer

The installation process is required to copy the files to the proper folders and to set the environment variables used for building applications using Aurora Vision Library Lite.

To verify that the installation has been successful, one can try to load, build and run example programs, which are available from the Start Menu.

SDK Directories

Aurora Vision Library Lite is distributed as a set of header files (.h), dynamic (.dll) and static (.lib) libraries. The libraries (static and dynamic) are provided in versions for 32-bit and 64-bit system. The header files are common for both versions.

The picture below shows the structure of the directories containing headers and libraries included in Aurora Vision Library Lite.

The directories (installed in the Program Files system folder) being a part of Aurora Vision Library Lite are shortly described below.

  • atl_visualizers – a directory containing the visualizers for Microsoft Visual Studio Debugger of Aurora Vision Library Lite data types.
  • bin – a directory containing dynamic linked library files (AVL_Lite.dll) for 32|64-bit applications. The libraries are common for all supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio and for Debug|Release configurations. All the functions of Aurora Vision Library are included in the AVL_Lite.dll file.
  • Documentation – a directory containing the documentation of Aurora Vision Library Lite, including this document.
  • include – a directory containing all header (.h) files for Aurora Vision Library Lite. Every source code file that uses Aurora Vision Library Lite needs the AVL_Lite.h header file (the main header file) to be included.
  • lib – a directory containing static (.lib) libraries ( AVL_Lite.lib ) for 32|64-bit applications. The AVL_Lite.lib file has to be statically-linked into the program that uses Aurora Vision Library Lite. It acts as an intermediary between the usage of Aurora Vision Library Lite functions and the AVL_Lite.dll file. The programmer creating an application does not need to bother about DLL entry points and functions exported from the AVL_Lite.dll file. Aurora Vision Library Lite is designed to be easy to use, so one only needs to link the AVL_Lite.lib file and can use all the functions from the AVL_Lite.dll just as easy as local functions.
  • tools – a directory containing the License Manager tool helping the user to load the license for Aurora Vision Library Lite to the developer's computer.
  • Examples – a directory located in the Public Documents system folder (e.g. C:\Users\Public\Documents\Aurora Vision Library 5.3 Lite\Examples on Windows Vista/7) containing simple example solutions using Aurora Vision Library Lite. The examples are a good way of learning, how to use Aurora Vision Library Lite. They can be used as a base for more complicated programs as well. The shortcut to the Examples directory can be found in the Start Menu after the installation of Aurora Vision Library Lite.

Library Architecture

Aurora Vision Library is split into four parts:

  1. Aurora Vision Library - contains all functions for working with images.
  2. Standard Library - contains all auxiliary functions like: file operations, XML editing or mathematical operations.
  3. GenICam Library - contains all GenICam and GigEVision functions.
  4. Third Party Library - contains functions of third-party hardware producers.

The usage of the library is possible only when including one of the following header files:

  • AVL.h
  • STD.h
  • Genicam.h
  • ThirdPartySdk.h

Environment and Paths

Aurora Vision Library Lite uses the environment variable named AVL_LITE_PATH5_3 (5_3 stands for the 5.3 version) in the building process. The variable points the directory with the headers and libraries needed in the compile time (.h files and AVL_Lite.lib ) and in the run time ( AVL_Lite.dll ). Its value is typically set to C:\Program Files (x86)\Aurora Vision\Aurora Vision Library 5.3 Lite, but it can differ in other systems.

The projects using Aurora Vision Library Lite should use the value of AVL_LITE_PATH5_3 to resolve the locations of the header files and statically-linked AVL_Lite.lib file. Using an environment variable containing path makes the application source code more portable between computers. The AVL_LITE_PATH5_3 path is typically used in the project settings of the compiler (Configuration Properties | C/C++ | General | Additional Include Directories) to find the header files, settings of the linker (Configuration Properties | Linker | General | Additional Library Directories) to find the proper version of the AVL_Lite.lib and in the configuration of Post-Build Event (Configuration Properties | Build Events | Post-Build Event | Command Line) to copy the proper version of the AVL_Lite.dll file to the output directory of the project. All the settings can be viewed in the simple example applications distributed with Aurora Vision Library Lite.

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