Could r200 camera be used outdoor, under the sun? Why I got nothing outdoor?

[Congxiang_P_Intel]

Ubuntu 14.04 + librealsense

[MartyG]

The R200 was made to be used outdoors, as it is a mobile camera that was built for devices such as tablets. If there is a problem with generating an image outdoors then it is sometimes related to a component in the camera called the IR emitter, which helps the IR camera to handle light exposure. In very bright or very low light, the IR sensor can apparently become saturated.

RealSense expert Samontab says "Basically, R200 is a stereo camera, so it needs to see features in both sensors correctly to have a good depth image. If it is under or overexposed, you'll have a bad quality depth image."

The SDK has an instruction for enabling and disabling the IR emitter.

https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/realsense/camera-sdk/v1.1/documentation/html/index.html?setdsenableemitter_device_pxccapture.html Intel® RealSense™ SDK 2016 R2 Documentation

[Congxiang_P_Intel]

thanks for your reply. I'll try

[jb455]

Try setting the following parameters to improve outdoor performance:

var device = pSenseManager.captureManager.QueryDevice();

device.SetDSEnableEmitter(false);

device.SetDSLeftRightExposure(1);

device.SetDSLeftRightGain(1);

Edit: oh wait, just noticed you're using librealsense. You probably won't have those exact methods available but probably something similar? You need to turn the IR emitter off and set the depth exposure and gain to their minimum values.

[MartyG]

This is apparently the Librealsense instruction for the IR emitter.

RS_OPTION_R200_EMITTER_ENABLED

Example script:

* Enables / disables R200 emitter

*/

public void setEmitterEnabled(int value) {

setOption(RealSense.RS_OPTION_R200_EMITTER_ENABLED, value);

}

[Congxiang_P_Intel]

Thanks for your reply. I'll try, or move my work to windows+RealSensen SDK

[SStep4]

Hi,

do you have any updates on the performance in sunlight? Is there any video that clearly shows the average performance (i.e. not cherry picked...)?

Thanks

[MartyG]

I don't think it's that easy to determine an 'average' performance in sunlight, simply because you would have to gather together a range of videos to compare, and even then the sunlight level is not going to be the same in every video.

At the risk of cherry-picking, here's a couple of videos that give an indicator of performance in strong sunlight.

1. Flying a RealSense drone through a forest with collision avoidance detection in strong light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbgExpbaRCM Intel Real sense 3D Camera Drone - YouTube

2. R200 with Jetson TK1 on a sunny day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO6PQwwNZEQ RealSense R200 with Jetson TK1 Outdoors on sunny day, Part 1 - YouTube

[idata]

Hi pancx,

Do you still need assistance with this thread?-Sergio A