Purpose

Acquire images from Allied Vision Technologies (AVT) camera using Vimba SDK. Convert to Robot Operating System (ROS) image messages.

ROS Topics

image published with image_transport. The root image topics name is /avt_camera_img

The camera can be triggered by sending a message (type std_msgs/String) to /trigger topic. The camera will acquire an image each time a trigger message is received.

ROS parameters

~cam_IP: type str default 169.254.75.133

~image_height: type int default 1200

~image_width: type int default 1600

~exposure_in_us: type int default 10000 (micro seconds)

~trigger: type bool default false

balance_white_auto: type bool default false

exposure_auto: type bool default false

Launch files

image_view.launch: start a camera in continuous asynchronous grabbing mode.

image_view_dual_cam.launch: start two cameras in continuous asynchronous grabbing mode.

image_view_trigger: start a camera in triggerd grabbing mode.

Usage

1. Install the Vimba Driver

Go to the official website https://www.alliedvision.com/en/products/software.html. Download driver for Linux x86/x64 and unzip it. Look inside the folder named VimbaGigETL, run Install.sh file from command line. After installation, log off once to activate the driver.

Please use Vimba Viewer to test if your camera has been properly configered and is discoverable. The Vimba Viewer can be found inside the Tools folder. Test if you can open the camera and grab images using Vimba Viewer. If not, this ROS wrapper will fail, too.

2. Install avt_camera package.

Before installation, make sure that cv_bridge and image_transport are installed.

$ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-cv-bridge ros-melodic-image-transport

Then clone this package to your working directory and build your workspace.

3. Run this ROS driver.

The camera can be operated in three modes: fixed rate, freerun, and triggered. You can find example launch files in the launch folder. To start the camera in freerun mode, modify the cam_IP parameters in image_view_freerun.launch then run the launch file. You should be able to see info messages like below:

process[avt_camera-2]: started with pid [20715]
process[img_viewer-3]: started with pid [20716]
[ INFO] [1600368569.637844996]: Got camera IP 169.254.49.41
[ INFO] [1600368569.639330100]: Got image_height 1200
[ INFO] [1600368569.639791686]: Got image_width 1600
[ INFO] [1600368569.640252336]: Got exposure_in_us 10000
[ INFO] [1600368569.640806019]: Got frame_rate 5.000000
[ INFO] [1600368569.641288423]: trigger source is FreeRun
[ INFO] [1600368569.641740295]: exposure_auto disabled
[ INFO] [1600368569.642180697]: balance_white_auto disabled
[ INFO] [1600368569.642619134]: gain is 0 dB
[ INFO] [1600368575.595667922]: receiving frame failed.

The "receiveing frame faild" info message only indicates a failure of receiveing a single frame. It is normal to see this message from time to time.