Image acquisition Bumblebee2 shows images only from one sensor

[opopo]

Hi,

I'm doing a project involving stereovision, i need to use stereo vision in order to compute distance. The very first problem i have is that i cannot acces 2 sensors. I use Vision acqusition express VI and i can get only acces to one sensor.

Software provided with camera works fine, it shows 2 diffrents videos. I've looked over other topics concerning Bumblebee camera but still I cannot find any solution.

So, concluding my question is how can i acces both sensors from stero vision camera Bumblebee2?

[BlueCheese]

According to the data sheet, there are various ways to get the image. You can either get the image from a single sensor (and swap between the two) or you can get them in an inteleaved format where you get one pixel from each camera in sequence.

See the following snippet from the datasheet:

Thus I would assume that if you use any of the non-Format 7 modes you would get an image from a single side (and could adjust the "Pan" attribute to swap between them. If you switched the video mode to format 7 you should get the interleaved mode.

Eric

[BruceAmmons]

I am guessing you are currently using the 16 bit format.  You can see the image formed by the high bits, but not the low bits.  Here is a quick way to see the low bits:

AND the original image with the number 255 to remove the high bit image.  This can be converted to an 8 bit image if desired.

If you want just the high bit image, you can downshift it 8 bits, then convert to an 8 bit image if desired.

It looks like IMAQ Cast Image will do both of these - just convert the 16 bit image to an 8 bit image, using 0 bit shift for the left image and 8 bit shift for the right.  Make sure you use different 8 bit images for the destination of each.

Bruce

[ChristopheC]

Do you plan to use your own stereo vision algorithm once you get the images?

Vision Development Module 2012, which is currently in beta, contains stereo vision functions. If you don't currently have it, and want to give it a try. Please let us know.

Christophe

[remicek]

Thanks for fast and accurate answer, 

@BruceAmmons I will try out your advice as soon as I get to that camera (i can work with it only on my university). 

@ChristopheC I dont really have a clear idea how to process these images, so stereo vision function would be really helpful. How could i get acces to this Vision Development Module 2012 beta?

[Elmar_NI]

Hi Remicek,

You can find the beta program here.

The VDM beta version is at the moment in an early state.

This is the reason why it's not available right now.

Elmar

[opopo]

No matter what I do I just cannot get image from both sensors. I tried both ways you suggested, using logical operation on image and using imaq cast image. I was trying to configure camera in MAX as suggested here, I could use only one format there and I couldn't change it or get access to both sensors. If I understand it correctly it should be as simply as described by Bruce, I've added VI I was testing camera on.

[BruceAmmons]

You need to create two more images, which I would call Left and Right.  Wire them as the destination images for the two IMAQ Cast operations.

Bruce

[opopo]

Well I've connected it like u said and still its not working, i have orginal image (which is 32bit RGB) but still there is no right/left processed image, there is no error or anything but 2 displays are blank. I think problem is somwhere else, BlueCheese posted datasheet from bumblebee2 which says camera can be configured to interleaved stero pairs using format_7 on MAX i have only one option to choose in Pixel Format: "BGRA 8 packed".

[BruceAmmons]

Is the bumblebee2 a color camera?  That messes things up.  The conversion from raw image to color is destroying the data for the second image.

Somehow you need to get the raw image data from the bumblebee as a U16 image, then split it into two U8 images.  The resulting images could then be converted to color using Bayer routines.

It is going to take some experimenting with settings in MAX to get the raw image data.

Bruce