Intel® RealSense™ Camera (R200) Developer Kit

[Daniela_R_]

Hi,
is the Intel® RealSense™ Robotic Development Kit​ also usable outdoors when being subjected to vibrations? The use case is that I want to mount it on a bike (handle bar -> camera; luggage rack->  board).
kr dr

[Jonathan_M_Intel]

Depending on what you're pointing it at, sure.  It doesn't have a big dependency on inter-frame stability, so other than some blurring, you should be OK.

If you're using it at night, you should be fine with the standard settings, but if you plan to use it in daylight, you should be aware of a few things:

1. Sunlight has enough IR in it that it can overpower the onboard emitter on the R200.  This means that you may never have a fully-dense depth map on surfaces that are not naturally richly-textured.  Grass, leaves, or rough concrete may be fine, for example, but smooth sidewalks may not be, and asphalt may be too dark to return any IR, but your mileage may vary.  

2.  To get the best depth map, it is often recommended to turn on the Infrared stream for viewing (you can treat it like a 1-channel image, so CV_8UC1 if you use OpenCV or OF_IMAGE_GRAYSCALE if you're using OpenFrameworks.  If you're using RealSense SDK, also make sure that you don't always expect your delivered frame width to match your expected frame width -- it may deliver a slightly wider image, so you should always check your ImageData.pitches[0] and use that as your "true" image width).  While watching the infrared stream and the depth map, you'll need to adjust your IR exposure and gain until you get the best depth map for your lighting conditions.  

3.  The R200 has a "Minimum Z" of about half a meter -- anything closer than this won't be detected.  So if you're planning on this being a safety feature on your bike, you should set your alert distances well beyond that range, otherwise you may only get a few frames captured before an obstacle gets too close to be reported as a danger.  Stay safe!

[Daniela_R_]

Thanks for the quick answer. How long is the warranty for the Intel Realsense R200 Developer Kit? Does it get damaged, if it is subjected to strong vibrations, f.e. mounted on a handlebar of a bike while riding the bike on underground made of cobblestone?