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Kinect IR 320x240
Ian Lo from Canada  [4 posts]
11 year
I've been using Roborealm with the Kinect for object recognition. I've been using the IR function fine, but I have it hooked up to a separate netbook soI have been using remote desktop to get the video feed from the Kinect on another computer. It works smoothly on 320x240, but not on 680x480 on RGB mode. If I switch it to IR mode it works very slowly on 680x480 and when I click 320x240 it shows a frozen version of the previous image (680x480). Is there a better way to get this camera feed? Is there a way to get 320x240 to work?
Steven Gentner from United States  [1446 posts] 11 year
Yes, there are several better ways to move images around than using remote desktop. It depends on what you want to do with the image on the other computer.

1. If you just want to view it, then turn on the webserver in RR (Options Dialog->Webserver tab) and use a browser to access that machines IP address form the other computer. Note that this webserver is compatible with the LabView Dashboard created for FIRST. You can configure the netbook to .6 and the Dashboard will think its accessing an Axis camera but instead its the image from RoboRealm which may be from the Kinect, Axis, Webcam, etc.

http://www.roborealm.com/help/Options.php#webserver

2. If you want to access it programatically from another computer, the best way is to use the API.

http://www.roborealm.com/help/API.php

3. If you want to send an image from one RoboRealm instance to another, you can use the Distributor modules to send images and variables between instances. You can also specify the compression used so you can adjust to what you have. See

http://www.roborealm.com/help/Distributor.php

Hope one of those are what you need.

STeven.
Ian Lo from Canada  [4 posts] 11 year
Thanks for the help Steven! I now think our problem is with the slow netbook. Although the speed is increased greatly by going through the browser, the filters use up too much of the netbook's cpu. I still think that this can be fixed with a lower resolution image. Have you experienced/know about the issue with the IR sensor on the lowest resolution?
Steven Gentner from United States  [1446 posts] 11 year
We'll double check things tonight as I know there were issues in the past with that res on the IR camera.

While we look into that, use the scale module to reduce the image to 320x240 and ensure that the webserver in RR is serving the "processed" image (its in the same Options Dialog->Webserver tab area). That should quickly reduce the image size and allow processing speed to increase. Just be sure to place that as the first module in the pipeline.

STeven.
Steven Gentner from United States  [1446 posts] 11 year
Ok, so the known issue with 320x240 is actually with the RGB mode and not the IR mode. We tried what you describe in your first post and do not see that issue. Changing between 320x240 and 640x480 in either IR or RGB work fine.

One of the potential issues that may be causing this is the USB power of the netbook. We ran across this issue with some netbooks that were not providing enough amps via USB ... even with the power plug it still requires a good deal from USB. So, try running the netbook with main power and ensure it looks ok, then unplug it and see what happens.

Also, sometime try the settings, press ok, and exit RR. Then restart and see if that setting works. Sometimes the Kinect doesn't like configuration changes and works better if you exit the application and restart. Worth a try ...

At any rate, we're not seeing any issues from our tests.

STeven.
Steven Gentner from United States  [1446 posts] 11 year
One additional point, try JUST the 320x240 IR image without the RGB. We've seen quite a few folks keep the RGB and IR image together. This is not ideal since the processing will take about 2x long and the offsets to the actual objects will all be off. Its best to focus on one image at a time ... this is selected using the radio buttons at the top of the interface.

STeven.

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