I agree that standardizing the usb camera support is a great thing to do.
In the short term adding a nodelet manager into any node is trivial all you
have to do is instantiate a nodelet::Loader class.

The main for the nodelet manager looks like this:
{{{
  if (command == "manager")
  {
    ros::init (argc, argv, "manager");
    nodelet::Loader n;
    ros::spin();
  }
}}}

Tully

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Ken Conley <kwc@willowgarage.com> wrote:

> There are a lot of different USB camera drivers out there building on
> separate underlying libraries (gscam, uvc_cam, usb_cam).  I Heart
> Robotics had a nice review ~6 months ago [1].
>
> A USB camera driver would have to follow the same path that Jack
> O'Quin pioneered.  We would need someone to step forward to survey the
> current field of USB camera drivers, choose the one(s) worth
> stabilizing, develop where appropriate, review, and release. As
> before, we're happy to support the process, but, as a policy, we don't
> develop drivers for hardware we don't use.  The camera1394 review [2]
> should give a general idea of what to expect with the process.
>
> Now that the ROS camera API is relatively stable, we can start
> dissolving the idea of the monolithic 'camera_drivers' stack.  This
> means that a new USB camera driver would not have to meet the
> camera_drivers freeze date -- it would likely be in its own separate
> stack anyway.
>
>  - Ken
>
> [1]:
> http://www.iheartrobotics.com/2010/05/testing-ros-usb-camera-drivers.html
> [2]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/camera1394/Reviews/2010-05-27_API_Review
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 7:55 PM, Bill Morris <morris@ee.ccny.cuny.edu>
> wrote:
> > Is there any chance we can get a nodelet based USB camera driver in for
> > Diamondback?
> >
> > On Sat, 2010-12-04 at 19:45 -0800, Ken Conley wrote:
> >> It's currently sidetracked because of our focus on the Kinect.  We
> >> figured it would be a shame if people had to wait for E Turtle for
> >> good Kinect support. We hope to still get it in for Diamondback, and
> >> we've relaxed the freeze date on Kinect-affected stacks.
> >>
> >>  - Ken
> >>
> >> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Bill Morris <morris@ee.ccny.cuny.edu>
> wrote:
> >> > Does anyone know the status of the nodelet based image pipeline?
> >> >
> >> > The roadmap seems incomplete.
> >> > http://www.ros.org/wiki/image_pipeline/Roadmap
> >> >
> >> > I'm most interested in the status of a nodelet based image_view.
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > ros-users mailing list
> >> > ros-users@code.ros.org
> >> > https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
> >> >
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> ros-users mailing list
> ros-users@code.ros.org
> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>



-- 
Tully Foote
Systems Engineer
Willow Garage, Inc.
tfoote@willowgarage.com
(650) 475-2827