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Electronics: LPB Poolcam

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vickymmcd edited this page Oct 8, 2017 · 8 revisions

Description

The LPB Poolcam is a Point Grey Blackfly camera mounted above the testing pool in the Large Project Building (LPB). It can be used for computer vision projects, taking test footage of vehicles when running vehicle tests in the pool, or other camera-related projects.The camera is an ethernet camera, over which both power and information run. A gray cable runs from the camera down to the workstation beside the pool and into a black power box. This gives the camera power directly from an outlet without pulling from the computer. Plugged into the black box is a yellow ethernet cable that plugs into a computer for analysis.

Installing Software

  1. Install flycapture by downloading the .tar.gz file from FLIR Downloads (link)
  • Select "Blackfly" under "Product Families"
  • Select "BLACKFLY-PGE-23S2C-CS" under "Camera Models"
  • Select your OS under "Operating Systems"
  • If you are prompted to login, create an account or use "[email protected]" for Email & "MyLittleFLIRCamera!" for Password
  1. Unzip the flycapture file
  • To use tar to unzip the file, use the command format tar -xvzf /path/to/yourfile.tgz.
  1. Open the README file and follow the instructions to install flycapture dependencies and libraries
  • The README also contains instructions for removing flycapture.

Installing Camera Driver

  1. Documentation on installing and using the camera driver for ROS is available on the ROS pointgrey_camera_driver page.
  • Install: sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-pointgrey-camera-driver
  • List Detected Cameras: rosrun pointgrey_camera_driver list_cameras
  • Run Camera: roslaunch pointgrey_camera_driver camera.launch

Opening FlyCap

  1. Open the Ubuntu Software Center (either through regular application list on Ubuntu or through the terminal command software-center)
  2. Search "flycap"

Troubleshooting

  • Raw Documentation created by Henry Rachootin (Class of 2020) during 2017 Spring Semester as part of ORS is placed in the repository for this wiki, but is outdated and inaccurate.
    • To access, clone the wiki repository using the link to the right --->
  • Ubuntu Software Center gives the error: "No items match "flycap"
    • FlyCap should be on your system as an Application, and you should be able to find it without Ubuntu Software Center.
  • Trying to install the pointgrey camera drivers through the Terminal returns the error E: Unable to locate package ros-kinetic-pointgrey-camera-driver.
    1. Go to ros-drivers/pointgrey_camera_driver
    2. Clone the repository into your src folder in your catkin workspace (most likely called catkin_ws)
    3. Navigate to your main workspace folder (.../catkin_ws) and run the command catkin_make.
  • Camera doesn't show up in FlyCapture software
    Make sure your wired serial connection is using the correct serial address (see image below); Check your firewall; see Troubleshooting, Error 3 for more details (link)
    Screenshot of proper settings for poolcam

Using the Camera w/ ROS

  • Run roscore in a terminal
  • List Detected Cameras: rosrun pointgrey_camera_driver list_cameras
  • Use the serial number you should see from the above step in place of 'serial' to run camera: roslaunch pointgrey_camera_driver camera.launch serial:='serial'
  • To see what you want to subscribe to check: rostopic list
  • Run your code which uses the camera

Recording a bag file for later use

  • Connect to the camera and run roscore in a terminal
  • Run rosbag record -a -O myfile.bag in a terminal
  • Hit ctrl and c to quit after you have made a long enough recording for your needs
  • To playback run rosbag play myfile.bag in a terminal to play the recording (to do this you must have roscore running but you do not need to be connected to the camera to playback a bag file).

Images

View of Poolcam info label View of Poolcam ports

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