FPGA and camera Interface

[Altera_Forum]

Hello Everyone, 

 I have two questions regarding my project.  1) I want to interface a camera with my FPGA board which is DE2 of ALTERA family, the properties of camera are a) Camera is of Epix Inc b) the camera is operated or controlled via a software (XCAP) in PC c) The camera comes with Frame Grabber which is PCI interfaced with PC and camera is RJ45 interfaced with Frame Grabber.  i want to ask that can i interface the camera via RJ45 directly to FPGA? If yes then will it work fine because in PC it works with Software?  2) can you please guide me any good material for USB interface between PC and DE2 Board that how i can transfer pixel of image from PC software to FPGA via USB? also which memory should i use SRAM or SDRAM?  Please tell me how i can solve these two problems.  Thanks

[Altera_Forum]

If the board has Ethernet - yes You can interface that camera to FPGA.  

 You can interface the board to PC using CY7C68013 USB SoC, but I am not sure if it exist on Your board.  I'd offer to use SDRAM for buffer, since SRAM is quite small.

[Altera_Forum]

Dear Sir thanks alot for your informative reply. I have DE2 board and yes it has Davicom DM9000A Fast Ethernet controller chip. So camera can be interfaced directly to the FPGA? One more thing which i forget to mention in the last message is that it is CMOS camera. 

 I want to interface the FPGA USB port to Host PC USB port via Quartus means a USB cable will be connected to both end and data will be transferred through it. As per your last answer you are recommending an intermediate chip to do this, i just want to simple transfer the image pixel from Hos PC to SDRAM of FPGA (DE2 board).  Can you please guide me any good material for USB interface? It will be very helpful for me.  Thanks

[Altera_Forum]

You've said the camera is interfaced via Ethernet, so it doesn't matter if it's CMOS or not. 

 I don't know any books regarding this. As I've said before, I'd take a look at Cypress USB SoC (e.g. CY7C68013).

[Altera_Forum]

Thanks alot fro your prompt reply. One more question or you can say that advise... so for what should i go interfacing camera directly to Ethernet or making USB interface between PC and USB host to FPGA board to transfer pixel value of image?

[Altera_Forum]

I'm 100% sure that the Epix system doesn't have an Ethernet connection, although the RJ45 connector may make you think so.