Home of the unnoficial ROS driver for MatrixVision BlueFox cameras.

Installing the mvIMPACT Acquire Library

1. Download the latest drivers from Matrix-Vision drivers page:

  • Select mvBlueFOX / mvBlueFOX-MLC in the drop down fields. Download the latest Linux drivers (e.g. mvVirtualDevice x86_XXXXXXXX.tgz) and unpack the archive in to a directory:

   1 $ cd ~/src (or wherever you want to install this package)
   2 $ tar xvzf mvVirtualDevice\ x86_XXXXXXXX.tgz
   3 
   4 # It  may just be enough to copy the contents of the “lib” folder (including sumlinks) into /usr/local/lib, as:
   5 $ cd your_path_to_mvIMPACT_acquire-XXXXXXX/lib
   6 $ sudo cp -P lib* /usr/local/lib/
   7 $ sudo ldconfig
   8 
   9 # vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
  10 # NEEDS REVISION:
  11 # Copy the included udev rules for the device from your mv_bluefox_driver directory (TODO)
  12 $ sudo cp path_to/mv_bluefox_driver/rules/51-mvbf.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
  13 # Unplug the camera and restart the udev service:
  14 $ sudo service udev restart
  15 # Plug back the camera
  16 
  17 # Now, compile the apps given as demo:
  18 $ cd your_path_to_mvIMPACT_acquire-XXXXXXX/apps
  19 $ make
  20 
  21 # You may want to run the wxPropGrid to test the camera
  22 $ cd your_path_to_mvIMPACT_acquire-XXXXXXX/wxPropGrid
  23 $ make
  24 # Run the wxPropView program
  25 $./wxPropView
  26 # ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Example

The driver can be run as a regular node by launching:

   1 roslaunch mv_bluefox_driver camera_node.launch

OR

The driver can be launched as a nodelet as:

   1 roslaunch mv_bluefox_driver camera_nodelet.launch

The camera can be calibrated via the camera_calibration package from image_pipeline by launching:

   1 roslaunch mv_bluefox_driver calibrate_camera.launch

NOTE: You must modify the checkerboard patter calibration parameters to suit your own.

After a .yaml calibration file has been properly generated, the actual rectified images can be processed further via image_pipeline's image_proc. Thus, the following launchers achieve that, respectively.

   1 roslaunch mv_bluefox_driver camera_node_proc.launch

OR

   1 roslaunch mv_bluefox_driver camera_nodelet_proc.launch

Nodes

mv_bluefox_driver

The mv_bluefox_driver node wraps the official driver for MatrixVision BlueFox devices and advertises sensor_msgs/Image messages published by image_transport::Publisher (API) as well as the corresponding camera information as sensor_msgs/CameraInfo. These can be further processed via the image_pipeline's image_proc (see the Example section for launching).

Published Topics

~camera_info (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)
  • Camera parameters information server
~image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)
  • Unprocessed (raw) image data

Parameters

~frame_id (string, default: camera)
  • The camera's frame name (id).
~calibration_file (string, default: "")
  • The camera_info path and name for the calibration yaml file (e.g. "whatever_path/mv_bluefox_calibration.yaml")

TODO

1. Add more configurable parameters. For now, only the default camera resolution is being used.

Wiki: mv_bluefox_driver (last edited 2012-06-15 15:16:26 by carlosjaramillo)