[ros-users] Digital Camera 1394 in ROS?

[Jack O'Quin]

> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Blaise Gassend
> <blaise at willowgarage.com> wrote:

>> Perhaps the right answer is for the CameraInfoManager class to be able
>> to handle files, parameters and flash, using a url to determine which
>> one it wants. In the case of flash, it does a callback to the driver,
>> which takes whatever steps are needed to store to flash.
>>
>> file:///etc/ros/camera_info/left_forearm.yaml
>> parameter:///~camera_info
>> flash:///1
>>
>> This way even for cameras that have flash, the user has the option of
>> picking a different source.

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 7:49 PM, Jack O'Quin <jack.oquin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since camera1394 is already experimental, I propose to create a
> CamerInfoManager{cpp,h} inside it, done so it can easily be moved to a
> separate package if it proves generally useful. That way I can play
> around with it internally at first and need not introduce an
> additional package dependency until it is ready.

OK, those files committed to camera_drivers_experimental/camera1394/src.

I had to play around with it a bit to figure out what Blaise had in
mind, but I think I've got the general idea. It seems like a
reasonable interface.

This version only supports reading and writing YAML (or INI) files for
calibration data. Blaise's suggested "flash:///" syntax is recognized,
but not implemented. I don't have any equipment to test that with,
anyway. The "parameter:///" syntax is not recognized; if needed, we
can implement it later. Partly tested, the current version has not
received a complete unit test. There are no automated test cases.

It uses camera_calibration_parsers for reading and writing YAML files.
Some of those methods seem to behave strangely in cases where a file
does not exist or is empty. I have not decided what to do about that,
yet.

I'll need to keep this initial implementation where it is for the
present, because I want camera1394 to work with the boxturtle release
to get more beta testing. If a future version moves to
camera_calibration_parsers, I'll update camera1394 to use it in the
next release.

I'd like to make this generally useful. There are things I don't know
about ROS coding standards and practices. Feedback and suggestions
would be helpful.
-- 
 joq