[ros-users] Digital Camera 1394 in ROS?

Wed Mar 10 17:08:51 UTC 2010

:) Ok. So in any case, please let me know when the driver is complete and published so I can remove the other one. I 
hate clutter. :)

Patrick Beeson wrote:
> Scratch that.  I just looked at the code for the first time in a
> while, and my ROS SR4K node does in fact build off of your ROS SR3k
> code (not my Player sr4k extension).  The changes are: uses the new
> Mesa API, works with ros 0.9 (no private nodes), and I changed the
> coordinate system to by consistent with others we use internally (this
> is easy to change back to typical image coordinates).  Again, when I
> get some down time, I'm willing to work to get this using
> image_transport, but right now is simply publishes sensor_msgs
> PointCloud and Image types.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Patrick Beeson <beeson.p at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It builds off of your Player SR3K driver.  There's a swissranger in Player
>> now that supports the 4K and the new Mesa library API for 3k/4k devices.  My
>> ROS one basically has the same guts as the Player one. This is a bit
>> different from your ROS sr3k driver, but works quite well.  It could stand
>> to be updated to use image_transport and needs a some tf info, but we could
>> open source it (considering it's largely based off your Player code anyway).
>>
>> Radu Bogdan Rusu wrote:
>>> Patrick, is your SR4k driver different than the one that I wrote some time
>>> ago ? (http://www.ros.org/browse/details.php?name=swissranger) If so, I
>>> would like to merge/deprecate that, provided that you will release yours as
>>> open source.
>>>
>>>
>>> Patrick Beeson wrote:
>>>> FYI,
>>>>
>>>> I have my own ROS node that combines cameradc1394 with the Player 1394
>>>> driver.  It works very reliably and depends on nothing but sensor_msgs (I
>>>> have to say that I do not like having to download the kitchen sink just to
>>>> get a simple hardware driver working, which is why I have my own versions of
>>>> Swissranger 4K driver, 1394 camera, etc.).
>>>>
>>>> Jack has been using it, along with a visualization tool I forked from
>>>> somewhere.  I think I'll work with Jack to get this added to his ROS
>>>> repository, or start my own (I'm assuming a reliable Swissranger 4000 driver
>>>> would be of desire to someone out there).  But, I should go ahead and make
>>>> it start using the image_transport package.  So, it'll probably be a few
>>>> weeks before this shows up in the ROS package browse.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jack O'Quin wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 9:29 AM, Rosen Diankov <rosen.diankov at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>> Thanks, Rosen.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not mean to come across as harshly critical of cameradc1394. I
>>>>> appreciate the work that has gone into it, and want to make it more
>>>>> accessible to users. We are trying to get undergraduates working
>>>>> productively with ROS vision components. Many of them are unfamiliar
>>>>> with both ROS and Linux. They will have a lot more trouble getting
>>>>> this working than I did.
>>>>>
>>>>>> - 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 did get it to work. It just took me a couple of hours. See below...
>>>>>
>>>>>> - i think the libdc1394v2 package is for systems that do not have
>>>>>> libdc1394 version 2 installed, otherwise the library itself should be
>>>>>> stable.
>>>>> On a recent boxturtle ROS install, the rosmake will fail because
>>>>> cameradc1394 depends on libdc1394v2, which is no longer being
>>>>> distributed. So, users either have to edit your manifest.xml to remove
>>>>> that dependency (which is still needed on Ubuntu Hardy), or they have
>>>>> to find and install the SVN repository for the
>>>>> camera_drivers_experimental package (doable, but not trivial).
>>>>>
>>>>>> - 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 am not particularly worried about computational overhead. It's more
>>>>> a question of system design and consistency.
>>>>>
>>>>> The other ROS camera drivers do not depend on opencv2. There are
>>>>> higher-level packages, such as image_view for that sort of function.
>>>>> I'd prefer a simple DC1394 driver that behaves like the other ROS
>>>>> camera packages. That way people can work consistently with all those
>>>>> devices.
>>>>>
>>>>>> - 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
>>>>> As you say, that is the correct URL for checkout. This error is
>>>>> currently not important, because you have no other branches (so far).
>>>>> But, you would not want users accidentally checking out *all* the
>>>>> branches instead of just the mainline version. When there is a stable
>>>>> version, they should check out branches/latest, instead, I suppose.
>>>>>
>>>>>> - 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.....
>>>>> It would be easier to find under http://ros.org/wiki/cameradc1394
>>>>> (which does not exist). It was hard to find because the SourceForge
>>>>> page for cmu-ros-pkg does not point to it. I did eventually find a
>>>>> pointer to it at the bottom of http://ros.org/wiki/libdc1394v2 (which
>>>>> does exist).
>>>>>
>>>>>> - the README in the top source directory was old and contained nothing
>>>>>> useful, i just deleted it
>>>>> Good idea, thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>>> - 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.
>>>>> I fully understand the difficulty of tracking rapidly changing
>>>>> interfaces in a complex system. That is why I favor better integration
>>>>> into the ROS development process.  I believe a design review would
>>>>> have identified the inconsistencies between cameradc1394 and the other
>>>>> ROS camera drivers.
>>>>>
>>>>> A good review might have caught the set_camera_info change, as well. I
>>>>> have so far been unable to display 1394 camera images with rviz. That
>>>>> may be the reason.
>>>>>
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>> I expect they would. I don't see the repo location as a problem right
>>>>> now (as long as the checkout URL is correct and up to date).
>>>>>
>>>>> I believe including good documentation into the ros.org wiki would
>>>>> make the package much more accessible to beginning users. I am willing
>>>>> to assist, if you feel that would be helpful. I don't know much about
>>>>> digital cameras, but I do know how to edit the wiki. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> ros-users mailing list
>>>> ros-users at code.ros.org
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-- 
| Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/