RealSense SDK, camera and firmware updater working on Windows 10 Preview

[MartyG]

Hi everyone,

This morning I installed the new free early-access version of Windows 10 - the next version of Windows after 8.1 - on a spare PC, and installed my USB 3.0 card, the RealSense camera and the Gold SDK on it.  Everything was recognized by Win 10 immediately with no complaints about version compatibility, some of the sample programs that come with the SDK functioned for the very first time and - most important for many of us here - the firmware updater ran and successfully completed with no problems whatsoever.  It was just like I was running everything in Windows 8.1.

I know the popular saying "Pictures or it never happened", so I took a bunch of reference images with my tablet as I worked and tested and will post them here soon as a gallery once I've assembled them together, once I extract them from my tab.  :)

I haven't tested the camera in Unity with Win 10 yet.  I'll comment on that once I have done so.

[steve-vink]

Excellent news! Look forward to hearing about your progress.

[MartyG]

Quickie update on Unity and the camera before I publish my gallery. 

I've tried the camera in the latest version of Unity out today, Unity 4.6 (it's very good!), using a Unity Pro account.  It seems to be a lot more stable in Win 10 than the experience I had before.  Previously, I just got lots and lots of red program-killing errors.  They seem to be gone now in Win 10.

The Unity examples in the SDK still aren't running for me, but it seems to be because of one remaining error - Unity keeps saying it can't create a temp file, whilst the Inspector panel says it cannot load the scripts into the objects.

In these projects, you also cannot place in the objects brand new script files that you create yourself, as you just get the message that the script does not exist. 

Looking at the permissions of the SDK's examples folders, they are all set to read-only, and if you set a folder to be writable then it just switches the read-only status back on again right away.  It made me speculate whether the 'can't create temp file' error happens because the read-only status of the files in the SDK folder is carried on into Unity when it imports the project.

[MartyG]

The captioned gallery of our Windows 10 Preview setup experience and using RealSense with it is now available.

http://sambiglyon.org/?q=node/1301

[Yvan_R_]

Thanks Marty. I was hoping it wouldn't come to changing the OS. I don't mind running the preview versions, except that they usually expire, don't they? 180 days or something like that?

[MartyG]

I think previous previews have had that limitation.  One way to look at it though is that the contest closes in 90 days, so it would see you through to the deadline.

There's rumor that the final release of Win10 will be free anyway so Microsoft can keep pace with Apple and their giveaway OS release business model.  They already upgrade from 8 to 8.1 for free.

[yosun]

Re: Cost of Windows. Microsoft has a BizSpark program that gives access to all their software for free, for those working on their own startup (read: indie dev with apps on the app stores). 

--

Marty, did you get to try RealSense on Unity 5 on Windows 10? 

[MartyG]

Hi Yosun,

I haven't tried Unity 5 on Win 10 yet, no.  Unity 5 is in beta at the moment and I'm not in the beta test program, so the best I can use right now is the new version 4.6 that has just been released in the past day - but even 4.6 is very good.  :)

[MartyG]

I've found a clue as to why Unity might be preventing the SDK sample programs from running, saying it cannot create a "response file" temp file, and also why the SDK's folders on my installation kept reverting back to read-only if you changed their permissions to be writable.

Googling about the 'response file' error, I found this reply to someone experiencing the same error:

"Your project is in C:/Program Files (x86)/.  This is read-only for all programs.   So Unity can't create that Responsefile and read it afterwards.  The morale is - never ever put you project into read-only project - Unity won't work".

So basically, the default installation path of the SDK may unintentionally actually stop Unity samples in the kit from running.  I moved the entire SDK folder to my computer desktop and ran the sample programs again, and the error was gone and the samples now worked, which would seem to validate the above statement about a problem with running Unity files from the Programs folder.

[daflippers]

I cannot believe that Intel still insist on putting the sample files in %ProgramFiles(x86)%!!!!!

I highlighted this issue with the early PerC SDK as it violates OS policy.  The OS is designed to stop programs writing into specific, critical folders to protect the OS from any compromise.

Simple solution is to move the Sample folder into your Document folder and build everything there.

It amazes me that there are so many extremely clever people that produce fantastic innovations in an SDK yet appear not to listen to feedback or ever try using what they release.

David

[MartyG]

Excellent progress is continuing to be made on testing the SDK and camera in Windows 10, and multiple sample SDK programs have now been successfully tested.  The sight of a constantly on green light on the camera lifts the spirits wonderfully!

Here's a list of the samples I have got to work so far by running them directly from the "bin > x64" and "bin > Win32" SDK folders.

*  mask_utils and mask_utils.cs

* raw_streams and raw_streams.cs

* emotion_viewer and emotion_viewer.cs

* capture_viewer

*  object_tracker and object_tracker.cs

*  clip_editor

In regard to Unity "Action" scripts, all but three are currently crashing my installation of Unity when the program is run with the script inside an object.  The three that haven't caused a crash are:

BlendshapeAnimation

HideAction

SendMessageAction

EDIT: I just found that although the Action scripts crash Unity when a program is run, there is a workaround.  If you place the Action script in an object and untick its Rules in the 'Inspector' panel to deactivate them, the program will not crash.

If you run in the in-editor preview mode instead of a full-screen Build and Run mode, you can turn the Rules back on whilst the program is running so that the camera can use those features again.

Instead of disabling individual Rules, a simple way to approach the problem is to set the entire Action script to be inactive when the program is first run (by unticking the box next to the script's name in the 'Inspector' panel) and then immediately switch the Action script on in the program    by using a separate script to send an activation instruction to the Action script.

Bitter programming experience has taught us that it's best to write your activation-call script in C#.  In last year's contest, I wrote a call script in JavaScript to talk to a C# script like the Action scripts, and they really hated talking to each other across language boundaries!

EDIT 2: Unity, on my installation at least, definitely prefers that you have the script enabled when your program is run and its Rules disabled, then turn the Rules on.  If you run with the Action script turned off completely and then activate it, it causes a crash.  Still, it is possible to turn individual rules on and off with scripting if I remember my recent read of the SDK manual correctly.

[Yvan_R_]

I was not so lucky I'm afraid.

I Installed Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Other the "bing" noise when I plug it in, there is no indication that the camera is present. I tried all 5 USB 3.0 ports.

I downloaded the latest drive from Creative's website but it didn't help.

I might try picking up a PCIe USB3.0 card. Other than buying a new PC I'm out of ideas.

[MartyG]

I'm not an expert on USB 3.0 but I wonder if in some cases for people who are having problems getting their computer to recognize the camera, they might have better results if they try installing different USB 3.0 controller drivers on their computer until they get a satisfactory performance?  (Considering the possibility that some drivers will be better written than others).  I'd welcome the thoughts of people more knowledgeable on this subject than me.

I thought of this because my USB 3 expansion card came with a disk with folders containing drivers for multiple manufacturers.  The driver I'm using on my machine, for example, is by a company called Renesas.  

[MartyG]

Here's an update on my progress with getting the camera working with Windows 10 Preview.

*  Most of the sample programs now run successfully.

*  Unity 4.6 - or at least my installation of it - still cannot provide access to features like hand and face tracking.

The turning point with my latest progress was checking the USB 3.0 expansion card I had installed in my PC in a PCI-E slot.  The card needs to have a 4-pin "molex" power cable plugged into the back of it (the kind of power cable plugged into the back of the DVD drive) so that the power supply can add power to the card in addition to the power the card draws from the PCI-E slot.  If it does not get enough power then USB 3 devices plugged into its USB ports can be treated like USB 2 devices and not function properly.

In the machine I had been using the card in, there was only one molex cable that would reach around the graphics card to the back of the USB card, so I used that.  I failed to notice though that the other end of this cable wasn't actually connected to the power supply but to the case's front cooling fan.  So effectively, not only was the USB card not getting enough power but even more was being drawn off the PCI-E slot it was in by the fan.  Oops!

I moved the card into another machine that had a spare PSU molex that would reach and freshly installed Windows 10 on this machine. .  Sample programs that did not work on the other machine now worked.  

The hand tracking samples are still not working though - the program insists it cannot load the hand module, even though it was installed.  And the face tracking sample just says "Starting init' and does nothing else.

So I guess that's my advice to those with an internal USB 3 expansion card.  If you're confident with having the PC's case open, take a look to confirm that a power-cable molex attached directly to the power supply is plugged into the card.

Edit: Just want to add that the additional 5 volt power provided by the molex to the card is used to power USB devices that don't have their own external power supply.  USB devices with their own mains plug can manage with the card's power alone, but "bus powered" devices without their own mains supply - which would include the RealSense camera in that category - need the extra juice provided by the PC's power supply via the molex cable, as the PCI-E card slot cannot provide the 5V that the molex gives.

Low power-draw devices like keyboards and mice can use a USB 3 port without the extra molex power, but for anything that puts a heavier drain on the USB port, plugging the molex into the USB card is recommended guidance.

[Konstantin_S_Intel]

daflippers wrote:

I cannot believe that Intel still insist on putting the sample files in %ProgramFiles(x86)%!!!!!

Simple solution is to move the Sample folder into your Document folder and build everything there.

David

Hi David,

We listened to your comments :) If you will open "Intel RealSense SDK Sample Browser" (1st shortcut you see in the SDK folder on desktop). There are "Sources" button next to each sample which does exactly what you recommended: it copies sample from master copy to the user's document's folder.

We keep "master copy" in protected folder for following reasons:

1. In order to support multiple users per PC scenarios

2. Let developers have "master copy" of each sample they change and get back to original once needed.

3. Not to lose changes in modified sample on SDK upgrade.

--

Konstantin

[daflippers]

Hi Konstantin,

So the users have been trying to build using the 'wrong' sources. 

It looks like you have put some things in place to remove the issue but not enough to stop users making mistakes.  Perhaps you should keep a zipped copy in %ProgramFiles(x86)% and extract the sources to the destination when you click the button meaning the source files would only exist in their uncompressed (buildable) form in the correct directory.

David