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OpenNI2 and RoboRealm not playing well together
Brian Barnes from United States  [3 posts]
7 year
Good afternoon,

Looking to use the Kinect with Roborealm. Followed all the directions here http://www.roborealm.com/help/OpenNI_Kinect.php

After installing the OpenNI installer, I can run the NiViewer.exe and get both a depth and rgb image but no IR.

When I try to add the OpenNI_Kinect or OpenNI2 module in RoboRealm it gives me an error message about missing dlls.

Anyone have a hint on how to fix this?

Running Windows 10 32bit.

Thank you
Brian
Brian Barnes from United States  [3 posts] 7 year
Ok, let me clarify. I would like to use the IR camera feature of the kinect in roborealm for target recognition for FRC. at the moment, it looks like openni only offers rgb and depth. trying to find the correct drivers to get the ir camera working in roborealm and windows 10.
Steven Gentner from United States  [273 posts] 7 year
Brain,

Unfortunately that's the case, there is no IR capabilities within the OpenNI toolkit as existed at the time of the module creation. Since it also appears that package is no longer being supported you have a couple other choices:

1. Use the old way of connecting to the Kinect using usblib documented at

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

which still works but is a somewhat painful process as its tricky to get everything installed and remain so. Note, Win10 will auto install Windows drivers for the Kinect when you plug it in ... those need to be REMOVED before the usblib drivers can work.

2. You can instead purchase a security camera that has IR/night vision. They come with reasonable  IR transmitters that will not work as well as the Kinect but its quite close. They communicate very similar to the Axis IP camera so that will be a more familiar integration than using the Kinect. Foscam makes some reasonably priced ones that can work. Sometimes you can get one with a pan/tilt motion capability which can be huge plus!

3. You can roll your own by using a webcam, removing the IR filter and introducing a visible light filter (an old floppy drive disk works really well for this). You would then have to purchase IR transmitter leds (either from superbrightleds or radio shack or frys /etc). This is certainly the cheapest and most flexible way but does involve ripping apart a webcam and carefully removing the IR filter (you may want to buy more than one webcam to practice!).

Hopefully one of these works for you!

STeven.
Steven Gentner from United States  [273 posts] 7 year
If you want to try option #3, Instructables is a good place to get some advice on how to do this:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Infrared-IR-Webcam/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Remove-IR-filter-From-Microsofts-HD-3000-Webcam/

just keep in mind to add in a visible light filter (old floppy disk or overexposed film) to remove everything but IR light.

STeven.

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