Technical Specs

4.3.1 Automatic conﬁguration (factory default)

The Dynamic Host Conﬁguration Protocol (DHCP) is preferred for setting an IP address. If DHCP is active on

the rc_visard, which is the factory default, then the device tries to contact a DHCP server at startup and every time

the network cable is plugged in. If a DHCP server is available on the network, then the IP address is automatically

conﬁgured.

In some networks, the DHCP server is conﬁgured so that it only accepts known devices. In this case, the Media

Access Control address (MAC address), which is printed on the sensor label, needs to be conﬁgured in the DHCP

server. At the same time, the sensor’s host name can also be set in the Domain Name Server (DNS). The host

name is deﬁned as rc-visard-<serial number>, which is also printed on the sensor. Both MAC address and

host name should be sent to the network administrator for conﬁguration.

If the rc_visard cannot contact a DHCP server for about 15 seconds after startup or after plugging in the network

cable, it will try to assign itself a unique IP address. This process is called Link Local. This option is especially

useful for connecting the rc_visard directly to a computer. The computer must be conﬁgured for Link Local as

well. Link Local might already be conﬁgured as a standard fallback option, as it is under Windows 10. Other

operating systems such as Linux require Link Local to be explicitly conﬁgured in their network managers.

4.3.2 Manual conﬁguration

Specifying a persistent IP address manually might be useful in come cases. This is done via the sensor’s standard

GigE Vision® 2.0 interface, and requires a conﬁguration tool to be installed on the host computer. We recommend

using the IpConﬁgTool that is part of the Baumer GAPI SDK. The SDK can be downloaded free of charge for

Windows and Linux from http://www.baumer.com.

After the conﬁguration tool starts, it scans for all available GigE Vision® sensors on the network. All rc_visard

devices can be uniquely identiﬁed by their serial number and MAC address, which are both printed on the device.

If the device cannot be found, it can also be connected directly to the computer for conﬁguration (see Automatic

conﬁguration (factory default), Section 4.3.1).

Warning: The IP address must be unique and within the local network’s range of valid addresses. Further-

more, the subnet mask must match the local network; otherwise, the rc_visard may become inaccessible. This

can be avoided by using automatic conﬁguration as explained in Automatic conﬁguration (factory default)

(Section 4.3.1).

4.4 Discovery of rc_visard devices

Devices that are powered up and connected to the local network or directly to a computer (see Network conﬁgu-

ration, Section 4.3) can be found using the standard GigE Vision® discovery mechanism. Roboception offers the

open-source tool rcdiscover-gui, which can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.roboception.com/

download for Windows and Linux. The tool’s Windows version consists of a single executable for Windows 7 and

Windows 10, which can be executed without installation. For Linux an installation package is available for Ubuntu

14.04 and 16.04. At startup, all available rc_visard devices are listed with their names, serial numbers, current

IP addresses, and unique MAC addresses. The discovery tool ﬁnds all devices reachable by global broadcasts.

Misconﬁgured devices that are located in different subnets than the computer may also be listed. An icon in the

discovery tool indicates whether devices are actually reachable via a web browser.

4.4. Discovery of rc_visard devices 20