Camera Connections

Table of contents

1. Camera Ports
2. Configurations
   1. 1 Tracking + Stereo
   2. 2 Tracking Only
   3. 3 Hires + Stereo + Tracking
   4. 4 Hires + Tracking
   5. 5 TOF + Tracking
   6. 6 Hires + TOF + Tracking
   7. 7 TOF + Stereo + Tracking
3. Configuration Files
   1. System camera_config.xml
   2. Snav and ModalAI Vision Lib
   3. ROS
4. Compatible Cameras

Camera Ports

VOXL has 3 camera connectors Labeled J2, J3, J4 in the two images below.

Image 1 - VOXL Bottom View

Image 2 - VOXL Top View

The connectors are attached to the following Camera Subsystem ports and have the following colloquial names. Note that the ports can be used in other configurations as described bellow, not just the purpose described by the port’s colloquial name.

Configurations

For each of these configurations, the cameras are accessible in software via their respective Camera ID number. This is the number which should be set in the ROS nodes, camera_test app, and snav configurations as described in section 4.

1 Tracking + Stereo

This is the default configuration that uses both tracking and stereo cameras provided by the VOXL-DK-MV kit.

2 Tracking Only

3 Hires + Stereo + Tracking

4 Hires + Tracking

5 TOF + Tracking

6 Hires + TOF + Tracking

7 TOF + Stereo + Tracking

Not yet validated, work in progress!

Configuration Files

Rarely, if ever, will you need to touch these configuration files manually. In most cases you can use the voxl-configure-cameras script as described above.

System camera_config.xml

The primary camera configuration file which tells the Camera Subsystem what what connected to which port is located at /system/etc/camera/camera_config.xml

This file should not be touched unless you are connecting cameras in a configuration not listed above or you really know what you are doing.

Snav and ModalAI Vision Lib

SNAV and the ModalAI vision lib need to know which camera_id to use for VIO tracking. This is set in /etc/snav/camera.downward.xml with the “override_cam_id” parameter. eg:

<SnavCamera>
  <SnavCameraDownward>
    <param name="override_cam_id" value="0"/>

They also need to know which camera_id to use for the stereo pair for visual obstacle avoidance. This is set in /etc/snav/camera.stereo.xml

<SnavCamera>
  <SnavCameraStereo>
    <param name="override_cam_id" value="1"/>

ROS

ROS launch files for voxl_cam_ros and tof_cam_ros pick the camera_id to use based on the following environment variables

HIRES_CAM_ID
TRACKING_CAM_ID
STEREO_CAM_ID
TOF_CAM_ID

These are loaded as bash environment variables by /etc/modalai/camera_env.sh which is called when starting a bash session by /home/root/.bashrc

You do not need to set this file manually, like the others it is set up by voxl-configure-cameras.

Compatible Cameras

This is an incomplete list, more to be added soon.