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Future support for Minoru 3D webcam?
from United States  [214 posts]
14 year
Hi STeven,

I was wondering if there is any plan for supporting the Minoru 3D webcam in the not-too-distant future?  In particular, would it be possible to get a disparity map from the camera rather than just left/right images?

http://www.minoru3d.com/

I've noticed the Stereo Module lurking about in RoboRealm for quite some time, but it does not appear to return disparity values yet, just the two images.  Is this correct?

Thanks!
patrick
Anonymous 14 year
Patrick,

Yea, we picked up one of those a while back. While a compact way to get two images from a single webcam the camera does not compute a disparity map nor does it really align the images in prep for such a process. It is basically two webcams stuck together in a compact uncalibrated way.

So it is compatible with RR at least in getting the images (you can use the 3D_Viewer module to see the anaglyph) but we are still working on the stereo module to get the actual disparity map ... for this and all other cameras. The issue we are currently dealing with in that module are speed (as would be expected) and planar objects (think walls) that cause a lack of features to match the two images on. We think we will have a interesting module for this but can't really estimate the eta on launch for that one since it is still in active research.

The current stereo module should create a disparity map but will do so slowly and not very accurately ... thus the reason it has not really been recommended nor announced. It was added mainly for testing purposes on our side (it is probably not even documented either!).

STeven.
Anonymous 14 year
If you are curious how it works post two images here and we'll tweak the params on that module to see what the best disparity it can produce ... an interesting experiment and one that would generate more tests for the newer version.

STeven.
from United States  [214 posts] 14 year
Hi STeven,

Thanks for your reply.  I don't actually own one of the Minoru cameras at the moment and from what you are saying, it doesn't sound like it's a good way to go for stereo vision.  Other options I know of are the Surveyor SVS system, the Videre cameras and those from Point Grey Research.  The latter two are almost certainly outside my budget constraints.  Do you have experience with any of these other stereo setups?

The reason I'm interested in the disparity map at this point is that I am developing routines to have my two-armed robot pick up various objects using RoboRealm to visually center the target, and a pair of sonar/IR sensors mounted beside the camera lens to estimate the distance to the target.  I then use a bunch of trigonometry to position the robot's hands to either side of the object in preparation for picking it up.  If I could stereo vision to get a fuller distance map over the object, I could more precisely determine the left and right sides of the target for grasping.

--patrick

Anonymous 14 year
Patrick,

Yup, I agree that stereo would help in that task. The current module that does Stereo would probably not give very nice results for this purpose. The newer one should do much better but still needs some optimization and work before we can release it (otherwise it works worse than the current one). We'll hopefully get that out sometime soon but unfortunately not immediately. Its a big module and will be of tremendous use to many so we want to be sure to get it right!

In terms of stereo systems with the right software the Minoru would probably work ok for your task ... but only with the right software!
from United States  [214 posts] 14 year
Hi STeven,

Thanks for the update.  I look forward to the new Stereo module when the time comes!

--patrick

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