Intel RealSense Camera R200, Depth Stream Problem

[sali17]

Hi!

I am having trouble with depth stream from realsense camera R200. It looks very noisy. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing both the SDK and DCM but it doesn't fix the problem. I am wondering if anyone else has had this problem? Below is a screenshot from camera explorer (left: color & depth stream, top right: color stream, bottom right: depth stream).

Thanks!

[jb455]

How far from the camera are those objects? The stream from my camera looks noisy too until I move about a metre away, then I come into focus fairly well though the background (around 5 metres away) stays looking like yours.

[Thomas_5207 · Accepted solution]

I notice in the window name it has (Long range). Is this some setting enabled to get a longer range of depth data? To get longer range you up the gain but closer objects become undetectable. 

In the SDK you can set the gain of the depth camera. by bringing it down to about 1 or 2 you should be be able to see this data more clearly. 

Also you may not be able to get data for your desktop there as it is black. The sensor has trouble detecting dark objects.

[sali17]

James B. wrote:

How far from the camera are those objects? The stream from my camera looks noisy too until I move about a metre away, then I come into focus fairly well though the background (around 5 metres away) stays looking like yours.

Thanks James. The camera is slightly more than a meter away. I have tried with shorter and longer distances but it does not seem to change.

[jb455]

Do you get the same results with other objects too? As Thomas pointed out, dark and/or glossy (not much texture) objects tend to give poor results.

[sali17]

Thomas_5207 wrote:

I notice in the window name it has (Long range). Is this some setting enabled to get a longer range of depth data? To get longer range you up the gain but closer objects become undetectable. 

In the SDK you can set the gain of the depth camera. by bringing it down to about 1 or 2 you should be be able to see this data more clearly. 

Also you may not be able to get data for your desktop there as it is black. The sensor has trouble detecting dark objects.

Thanks for the suggestion. I thought long range, in this case was just supposed to indicate R200 stream and not F200. I will try playing with the gain and see what happens. I am aware of the limitation with the dark objects, so mostly was looking at other objects in the scene. The noise gets a little better with "indoor" option but it still shows alot of noise even on a flat surface. 

Also, when I try to use 3DScan example from SDK, it is never able to detect the object/face/head/etc. It shows "Out of range", even when I try moving the camera within the entire recommended range for R200. And when I check off "texture" option, it returns a configuration error when I click on "start camera". Any idea if this could be due to noisy depth data or any other reason? Below is the screenshot:

[samontab]

That looks normal to me.

It's mostly because of the technology used. You will not get a dense depth map (i.e. a full image), you will have to deal with "holes".

This is particularly true for some materials, like the dark case of your computer. That thing is hard to see in 3D using many different techniques, mostly because you don't get much of the signal back from it (that's why it is black in the first place).

Try pointing the camera to a white sheet of paper, or other reflective materials, and you will see a much better depth map.

Have at my blog post using the F200 and a white sheet of paper here:

http://www.samontab.com/web/2015/11/interfacing-intel-realsense-3d-camera-with-google-camera-lens-blur/

If you scroll down you'll see a nice, smooth, continuous depth map in the areas covered by the sheet of paper. Try it yourself.

[sali17]

@samontab

Thanks for your suggestion and for pointing me to your post.

Thanks to Thomas_5207's suggestion, I tried playing with gain and exposure for right and left IR cameras and one of them doesn't seem to respond, which means it is a hardware problem and therefore, I don't get a proper depth image. 

Thanks everyone for helping with this.