GigE Camera Support

[drochairobot]

Hi Akram! My name is Dario and i'm using GTS version 0.4.4 installed in Windows. Recently installed over a 0.0.1 version we were using.

When in a new workbench, in the attempt of adding a first camera, a window will popup to select the camera to be assigned from the ones connected to the computer:

Even though it shows 5 items (amount of cameras we have connected to this computer), it shows their name on blank and when changing the selection on the items on the left, does not change the camera selected, as shown here:

When adding the second camera it shows No Camera (s)

All cameras are properly connected and is possible to record video from all of them using IC Capture.

This issue is most likely related to other several tracking issues we found on this version, by using the workbench files we have for version 0.0.1

[akramhussein]

Hi Dario,

What type of cameras are you using?

Thanks,
Akram

[drochairobot]

Hi Akram

We are using GigE Color Cams - Connected on a PoE Switch....

Dario

[akramhussein]

Hi Dario,

The GTS doesn't support GigE cameras. Only FireWire or USB that comply with IIDC2.0 or Unicap/Directshow.

I will take a look to see if it is easy to implement, otherwise I'm afraid I can not help as I do not have such a camera.

Thanks,
Akram

On 11 Oct 2013, at 19:29, drochairobot [email protected] wrote:

Hi Akram

We are using GigE Color Cams - Connected on a PoE Switch....

Dario

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[drochairobot]

Akram

We were using the Cams capturing with IC Capture, and the tracking for version 0.0.1 was good. We got it to work with issues only on the coverage for that version

For this late version 0.4.4 is not possible to select an external video source? Is it only possible to track if videos where recorded through GTS?

Thanks for your replies
Dario

[akramhussein]

Hi Dario,

We removed that functionality as it often led to broken workbenches. If we
can avoid re-implementing it that would be best - i.e. a GigE support would
be better in my opinion. If that isn't possible we can investigate an
alternative.

Thanks,
Akram

On 11 October 2013 19:47, drochairobot [email protected] wrote:

Akram

We were using the Cams capturing with IC Capture, and the tracking for
version 0.0.1 was good. We got it to work with issues only on the coverage
for that version

For this late version 0.4.4 is not possible to select an external video
source? Is it only possible to track if videos where recorded through GTS?

Thanks for your replies
Dario

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/5#issuecomment-26161637
.

[drochairobot]

Hi Akram,

Since we have the cameras installed, testes and probed to work, for us it would be better to use them.

NOTE: I tried using videos recorded with the cams, and renaming them so GTS 0.4.4 version can load the videos. But I've been seeing that during tracking the target gets lost, and when that happens the timestamps and heading values on the output are showing totally off values (time make jumps of millions of seconds; heading plots "-1.#IO").

Please let me know what we can do. I'll keep trying to make it work with this cameras and keep you updated.

Thanks again,
Dario

[akramhussein]

Previously, the GTS used a video's timestamp to generate the track results of [timestamp, x, y, theta...]. Unfortunately this is not accurate. Using more than one camera will give track results that are out of sync when merged. Therefore we moved to generating an auxiliary timestamp.txt file using the OS system clock. If the video was not recorded using the GTS it will not work.

Therefore, the correct solution would be to integrate GigE support. There is no current plan to do this.

[drochairobot]

Thanks for all the comments Akram,

Is it possible for you to tell me what is the latest version without this implementation you are commenting?

Maybe i can use an older version where the floor plans are solved and the tracking is also good with external video source.

Dario

[akramhussein]

I don't believe there is a version that satisfies all these criteria. When using more than 1 camera, the merging of tracking data is wrong if we do not use system time stamps for each track point. It 'looks' fine during post-processing, but it is likely to be out of sync and give erroneous results. I would advise against such an approach.

The most relevant releases for your question are:

• Floor plan fixes for more than 2 cameras were implement on September 13th 2013.
  Commit a919f06.
  The closest release would be 0.4.0 (https://github.com/dysonltd/gts/releases/tag/0.4.0).
• System time stamping was implemented on August 13th 2013.
  Commit 78f47f5.
  The closest release would be 0.2.0 (https://github.com/dysonltd/gts/releases/tag/v0.2.0).

The only way to ensure accurate and valid data is gathered using the GTS is to generate all the input data through the application.

[User-Neha]

Hi Akram,

On reading the above posts, it seems that the earlier version of GTS application doesn't supported the GigE cameras.
Can you please tell me if the support has been added in the latest release. If not, is there any plan to add the support in the upcoming releases.

Thanks in advance!!!

[akramhussein]

There is no support for GigE or plans to support it. Thanks.

[User-Neha]

Hello Akram,

Thanks a lot for the prompt response.

Is there any work around for using the GigE cameras, or one should simply
drop the idea of using them as it is not feasible.

Thanks and Regards,

Neha

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Akram Hussein [email protected]:

There is no support for GigE or plans to support it. Thanks.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/5#issuecomment-39206259
.

[akramhussein]

Might be possible with this library https://git.gnome.org/browse/aravis however this is for Linux.

[Bullatov]

Hi Akram,
I also tried to fix the problem with GigE Cameras. It seems like we are using the same camera like Dario. It is a Imaging Source DFK 23G445. I think the problem is, that the GTS shows the non debayered raw video. So I tested, if the camera works witch directshow and opencv. In both cases the video was debayered. Using directshow, you can choose from 4 different colourformats, two grey and two coloured. In the window where you can select your camera in GTS, the GigE camera’s Friendly Name, Device Path and also the Description is shown.
So I think there is no problem with supporting GigE Cameras in GTS. Perhaps you can help me to fix the problems.
First I checked the DirectShowCameraApi.cpp and I noticed that all the functions like getAvailableResolutions() and SetResolution() are not called during runtime. The reason is that you are checking if the pin category is PIN_CATEGORY_PREVIEW but it is a capture pin. I changed this, so all the functions where called. So I changed the function SetResolution() to change the colourmode. But it doesn’t affect the video I can see in GTS, but when I check the colourmode like this...

If((pmt->majortype == MEDIATYPE_Video)&&
(pmt->subtype == MEDIASUBTYPE_RGB32)){

}

... it seems like directshow changed the colourmode to RGB32.
I don’t know why GTS does not show the video debayered and in the right colourmode. Perhaps the problem is located in the function VideoCaptureCv( CV_CAP_DSHOW + static_cast<int>( n )). tried to find something useful in the internet, what can help me to understand how directshow an opencv are working together, but without success.
So maybe you have an idea which can help me to fix the problem. I am not a professional programmer, so forgive me if I mixed something up.
It seems like, fixing this problem will help a lot of people using the GTS

Thank and regards