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<h1>HowTo - cob_camera_sensors</h1> <p> The <i>cob_camera_sensors</i> package is a collection of ROS compatible drivers for the cameras installed on Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> 3. These include two AVT Pike C145 color cameras and one Swissranger 4000 time-of-flight sensor from Mesa Imaging. Both camera type are support for Windows and Linux. To enable Windows compatibility, remove all <code>-D__LINUX__</code> flags from <i>CMakeLists.txt</i> located at <i>cob_driver/cob_camera_sensors</i>. Lately, two Prosilica GC1380CH color cameras have been installed on one of the Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup>s, which are natively supported by ROS with the <i>prosilica_camera</i> package. The <i>prosilica_camera</i> binaries are executed within the related launch files. <i>cob_camera_sensors</i> </p> <p> Setting the camera parameters is different from the suggested ROS standard. Instead of setting all parameters within the ROS launch file, camera specific parameters are set within IPA specific configurations. This originates from IPA internal requirements to maintain backward compatibility to existing components. The ROS launch file only holds parameters related to the camera setup (e.g. 2 Pikes and 1 Swissranger) and a link to the IPA internal configuration file. </p> <h2>IPA configuration files</h2> <p> The IPA configuration file is located at <i>cob_driver/cob_camera_sensors/common/files</i> in a folder related to your sensor setup e.g. <i>cob3-1</i> or <i>cob3-2</i>. The configuration is XML-based. It holds one XML-tag for each camera e.g. <code><AVTPikeCam_0></code> for a AVT Pike C145 camera. The number within the tag-name is used to differentiate several camera of the same type. Here is an excerpt from the IPA configuration file of one of our Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup>s. </p> <code> <!-- Camera sensors initialization file --><br> <LibCameraSensors><br><br> <!-- Color sensors --><br> <AVTPikeCam_0><br> <!-- Holds the 64-Bit GUID of a connected node --><br> <!-- A GUID consists of a 32-Bit high part that holds the Vendor ID (Highest 24 Bits) --><br> <!-- and the Chip ID (8 Bits) and a 32-Bit low part that holds the lower bits of the Chip ID. --><br> <!-- The GUID is unique for all FireWire devices on the world. --><br> <GUID high="000A4701" low="10077026" /><br> <!-- The master initializes and releases the camera library and is --><br> <!-- respnsible for emitting the trigger signal to other cameras --><br> <!-- The slave is synchronizing its image acquisition with the trigger signal --><br> <!-- Valid roles: MASTER oR SLAVE --><br> <Role value="MASTER" /><br> <!-- Valid values: appropriate framerte or AUTO and DEFAULT --><br> <FrameRate fps="3" /><br> <!-- Valid values: FORMAT_0, FORMAT_1, FORMAT_2 ,FORMAT_7, DEFAULT--><br> <VideoFormat type="FORMAT_7" /><br> <!-- Valid values: MODE_0 - MODE_7, DEFAULT --><br> <VideoMode type="MODE_0" /><br> ...<br> <AVTPikeCam_0/> </code> <p> Each tag within the IPA configuration file has a short explanation of its functionality. Please feel free to examine one of the Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> configuration files to get an impression of the possible settings. </p> Camera intrinsics may be set for each camera with the designated tags. The information is later published with the images using the ROS <code>CameraPublisher</code> from the <code>image_transport</code> package. The user has the possibility of specifying different intrinsic. This is related to stereo vision, where intrinsics are optimize to fit to another camera. If not other specified in the ROS launch file, intrinsic parameters not related to any other camera are published. Extrinsic specify the rotation and translation relative to another camera. These parameters are not yet published and for IPA internal usage only. <p> For each camera their is also a related <code><VirtualXXXCam_X></code> tag. The also is related to backward compatibility issues and not used within ROS. Originally, it provided support for loading saved image data from disk and using it as if it came from a real camera device. However, ROS already provides more sophisticated means to record and play back data using <i>rosrecord</i>, <i>rosplay</i> and <i>bag files</i>. </p> <h2>ROS launch files</h2> <p> ROS launch files are used are located in <i>cob_driver/cob_camera_sensors/ros/launch</i> and hold information about the overall sensor setup not related to a specific camera. There is a launch file to start each camera independently and a launch file to start all Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> cameras at once. Each launch file specifies the location of the related IPA configuration file and the used color camera or time-of-flight camera type. The following camera types are supported: <ul><code>CAM_SWISSRANGER</code> - For Mesa Swissranger 3000/4000 time-of-flight camera</ul> <ul><code>CAM_AVTPIKE</code> - For AVT Pike 145C color camera</ul> The Prosilica GC1380CH color camera is supported through the ROS <i>prosilica_camera</i> package. To get more information, have a look at their tutorial. The camera specific launch files have an additional parameter specifying the camera's ID which is related to the number within the tag-name in the IPA configuration file e.g. <code><AVTPikeCam_<b>0</b>></code>. </p> <p> Knowing the fundamentals, we are now ready to start up the cameras. </p> <h2>AVT Pike C145</h2> <p> To run the AVT Pike C145 cameras from Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> 3 you must first ensure a proper setup of the camera hardware. At first ensure that the cameras are recognized by your Linux system, executing <i>dmesg</i>. When you now unplug and plugin the firewire cable you shod see some differences in the output, when repeatedly executing the <i>dmesg</i> command. On my pc the dmesg output is after plugging in the cameras is as follows: </p> <code> $ dmesg | grep 1394<br><br> [ 1.298395] ohci1394 0000:04:03.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19<br> [ 1.358234] ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[19] MMIO=[90300000-903007ff] Max Packet=[2048] IR/IT contexts=[8/8]<br> [ 2.644206] ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[002332fffe19d87a]<br> [ 159.528932] ieee1394: Node changed: 0-00:1023 -> 0-01:1023<br> [ 160.418182] ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[000a470110077026]<br> [ 160.424805] ieee1394: Node added: ID:BUS[0-01:1023] GUID[000a470110073080]<br> [ 160.424912] ieee1394: Node changed: 0-01:1023 -> 0-03:1023<br> [ 160.438307] video1394: Installed video1394 module<br> [ 160.453156] ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized<br> </code> <p> If not, make sure the green LEDs of the camera are on and you properly connected the camera to your PC. Additionally you may check with <i>lsmod | grep 1394</i> that all necessary firewire modules have been loaded. To make sure that you installed all necessary drivers on your system you may also want to install <i>coriander</i> with all its dependencies. <i>Coriander</i> is a handy tool to access all kind of ieee1394 firewire cameras and play with their settings. </p> <p> Once the camera is recognized by the system, you must create udev rules to get access right to the ieee1394 devices located at <i>/dev/raw1394</i> and <i>/dev/video1394</i>. Therefore create a file called <i>01-ieee1394.rules</i> in <i>/etc/udev/rules.d/</i> with the following content </p> <code> #firewire camera devices<br> KERNEL=="raw1394*",GROUP="plugdev",MODE="0664"<br> KERNEL=="video1394*",GROUP="plugdev",MODE="0664" </code> <p> Check if the Linux groups <i>plugdev</i> and <i>video</i> exist and if not create them. Then, add your Linux user these groups and restart your computer to activate the changes (Maybe you know a better way, to update the udev rules?). To test your cameras, run <i>coriander</i>. If it does not start up, there are still some issues to be solved before proceeding. Check if your user's group settings and the settings of the firewire device files at <i>/dev/raw1394</i> and <i>/dev/video1394</i> coincide. Once coriander is running, we are ready to launch the ROS nodes of the cameras, explained here on the example of Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> 3 number 1. <ol> <li>Install dependencies (<code>rosdep install cob_camera_sensors</code>) and build <i>cob_camera_sensors</i> (<code>rosmake cob_camera_sensors</code>) </li> <li>Launch the left IEEE1394 camera with <code>roslaunch cob_camera_sensors cob3-1_color_camera_left.launch</code> </li> <li>Launch the right IEEE1394 camera with <code>roslaunch cob_camera_sensors cob3-1_color_camera_right.launch</code> </li> <li>Launch <i>image_view</i> from ROS to show images from the left color camera with <code>rosrun image_view image_view image:=/camera/left/color_image</code> </li> <li>Launch <i>image_view</i> from ROS to show images from the right color camera with <code>rosrun image_view image_view image:=/camera/right/color_image</code> </li> </ol> </p> <p> All cameras are implemented using <i>image_transport</i> from ROS. Therefore, after launching the color camera and swissranger nodes you will have the following topic available. <ul>/pike_145C/left/camera_info</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/left/image_color</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/left/image_color/compressed</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/left/image_color/theora</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/right/camera_info</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/right/image_color</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/right/image_color/compressed</ul> <ul>/pike_145C/right/image_color/theora</ul> The color camera implements the <i>polled_camera</i> camera interface from ROS. Within the launch files a poller is started to continuously request images from the color cameras and publish them on a topic. </p> <h2>Swissranger</h2> <p> Both Swissranger versions 3000 and 4000 are supported. To run a Swissranger time-of-flight camera install the Linux drivers from www.mesa-imaging.ch. The ROS drivers have been tested with <i> libmesasr-dev-1.0.14-620.i386.deb</i>. Make sure there is a udev rule located for the Swissranger camera in <i>/etc/udev/rules.d/</i> after installing the driver. Depending on the specified group within the udev rule (usually <i>usb</i>), add your Linux user to this group. Restart your computer to activate the changes (Maybe you know a better way, to update the udev rules?). Now you are set up to use the Swissranger with the ROS drivers from <i>cob_camera_sensors</i>, here at the example of Care-O-bot<sup>®</sup> number 1: <ol> <li>Launch the Swissranger camera with <code>roslaunch cob_camera_sensors cob3-1_tof.launch</code></li> <li>Launch the Tof image viewer with <code>roslaunch cob_camera_sensors tof_camera_viewer.launch</code></li> </ol> If your camera is connected via ethernet, skip the udev rules and enter the appropriate ethernet address in the IPA configuration file. </p> <p> All cameras are implemented using <i>image_transport</i> from ROS. Therefore, after launching the color camera and Swissranger nodes you will have the following topic available. <ul>/sr4000/camera_info</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_grey</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_grey/compressed</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_grey/theora</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_xyz</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_xyz/compressed</ul> <ul>/sr4000/image_xyz/theora</ul> </p>