[ros-users] Digital Camera 1394 in ROS?

[Rosen Diankov]

hi jack,

I'm sorry you've been having so many problems with cameradc1394,
perhaps we can come up with a solution that will work well for you.

- You say it seems to work but not easy to install? Typing 'rosmake
cameradc1394'  should make and install everything for you, so are you
having trouble compiling things?

- i think the libdc1394v2 package is for systems that do not have
libdc1394 version 2 installed, otherwise the library itself should be
stable.

- cameradc1394 links the the ROS image libraries in order to
serialize/convert the message correctly, display the image, and
undistort it (radial distortion). You can disable the display
dynamically, so the the only other place where opencv would be used is
for undistortion and sending messages. Fortunately, both of these are
not that heavy on computation, so your system should handle it.

- i'm pretty sure the svn checkout command on sourceforge points to
the correct code:
svn co https://cmu-ros-pkg.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cmu-ros-pkg cmu-ros-pkg

The 'trunk' folder might be making things a little confusing for you,
therefore i recommend:

svn co https://cmu-ros-pkg.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cmu-ros-pkg/trunk
cmu-ros-pkg

- There is a link on the ros.org camera_drivers webpage
(http://www.ros.org/wiki/camera_drivers) into the correct wiki
location where the cameradc1394 webpage is stored. I'm not sure why
you feel it is hard to locate.....

- the README in the top source directory was old and contained nothing
useful, i just deleted it

- I think you are the first person that has expressed dissatisfaction
with the way cameradc1394 is structured (no code reviews, etc), I've
tried to stick with the camera API willowgarage publishes as much as
possible. In the past year, it has been hard to keep up with it due to
many changes, but we're actively maintaining cameradc1394. For
example, I just noticed that the API requires a "set_camera_info" and
"request_image" services, which we will add as soon as we have time.

If it makes a big difference for your team that the cameradc1394
resided on WillowGarage's servers rather than sourceforge's, then I'm
sure WillowGarage would be happy to host it.

rosen,

2010/3/10 Jack O'Quin <jack.oquin at gmail.com>:
> I am working with students at UT Austin, developing vision code for an
> autonomous vehicle. We want to use ROS, and need a 1394 Digital Camera
> driver for use with the car. With a number of people involved, I am
> looking for a stable, well-documented package with minimal
> dependencies.
>
> >From earlier messages on this ML, the recommended solution seems to be
> the cameradc1394 package from the cmu-ros-pkg repository. I see that
> the dcam driver recently went to the graveyard.
>
> Is cameradc1394 still recommended?
>
> That package does seem to work, but is not easy to install and
> documentation is sketchy. It depends on libdc1394v2 in the
> camera_drivers_experimental stack (no longer included in the ROS
> installation), and on opencv2 (a bit heavy for a device driver). The
> documentation is not linked into the ROS wiki and can be hard to
> locate. The svn checkout command for cmu-rps-pkg listed on SourceForge
> does not point to the repository trunk. The README in the top source
> directory points to http://manipulation.programmingvision.com/, which
> is not publicly accessible.
>
> I understand that the WG systems do not use 1394 cameras. Without
> hardware, it's hard to fully support such packages. The CMU developers
> are no doubt busy with other activities, too. I certainly don't blame
> anyone for the current situation.
>
> Is there any prospect of publishing some 1394 camera driver on
> code.ros.org with documentation linked into the ros.org/wiki?
>
> I am not expert in digital cameras, but am willing to help. We have
> several camera models for testing, and I can write documentation for
> the ROS wiki. Just pulling all the information together in one place
> would be good. But, I'd really like to see a fully supported package
> with design and code reviews, test plans, etc. It's hard to provide
> comprehensive robot vision support without this critical component.
> --
>  joq
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval
> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
> _______________________________________________
> ros-users mailing list
> ros-users at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ros-users
> _______________________________________________
> ros-users mailing list
> ros-users at code.ros.org
> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>