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We try to set up the Orbbec Astra Embedded S camera with ROS and our goal is to detect objects by reconstructing a 3D point cloud from the camera images. We are using ROS Noetic and the ROS-Package "astra-camera" (https://github.com/orbbec/ros_astra_camera) as well as Rviz to visualize the images and the 3D point cloud.

Here are the rostopics:

  • /camera/color/camera_info
  • /camera/color/image_raw
  • /camera/depth/camera_info
  • /camera/depth/image_raw
  • /camera/depth/points
  • /camera/ir/camera_info
  • /camera/ir/image_raw

First Issue:

The color (/camera/color/image_raw) and IR (/camera/ir/image_raw) image stream seems to be working fine, but the big issue is the depth (/camera/depth/image_raw) image stream as it is flickering very fast and does not seem to detect anything.

Second Issue:

When launching the camera by running "roslaunch astra_camera astra_pro.launch" we received three warnings:

  1. Publishing dynamic camera transforms (/tf) at 10 Hz
  2. Camera calibration file /home/astra/.ros/camera_info/rgb_camera.yaml not found.
  3. Camera calibration file /home/astra/.ros/camera_info/ir_camera.yaml not found.

By calibrating the color camera using a checkerboard, we were able to solve the 2. warning, as it generated the rgb_image.yaml file containing the intrinsic parameters. We tried calibrating the ir camera as well, but the ir_camera.yaml file was not generated. We have not yet solved the 1. warning.

Even though we are unsure if this is related to the issue regarding the flickering depth image stream, we believe it is worth mentioning.

We are ROS beginners and would be grateful for any feedback that could help us finding a solution. If you need any other or more information, please let us know.

Thanks,enter image description here

The following gif shows the issue Flickering-Issue

astra123
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  • How is the camera connected to the system? How many devices are connected to the system? I ask that because I remember seeing issues with camera devices if the throughput of the USB bus couldn't handle it. – ignacio Feb 05 '23 at 17:10
  • Hello @ignacio thank you for asking , we connect the astra camera with a USB-C cable to the linux system. It is the only device which is connected to our system. – astra123 Feb 05 '23 at 18:11
  • Then I would suggest: trying a different cable / USB Port and also running the node in verbose mode – ignacio Feb 05 '23 at 20:58
  • @ignacio Thank you very much! Could you explain please how to run the node in verbose mode? I have no idea. – astra123 Feb 05 '23 at 22:10
  • @ignacio the following link demonstrate the issue https://i.stack.imgur.com/0re05.gif – astra123 Feb 06 '23 at 13:53
  • I took a look at the code and it doesn't seem to have any sort of `DEBUG` being printed according to the [logger](http://wiki.ros.org/roscpp/Overview/Logging). – ignacio Feb 06 '23 at 14:29
  • @ignacio I took a look at the terminal, there is no DEBUG printed only [INFO]-logs. I'm not sure but maybe i should try to install the driver from orbbec instead of the ROS Package "astra_camera" – astra123 Feb 06 '23 at 14:37
  • @ignacio I saw this log statement. [ WARN] [1675694039.211483638]: Publishing dynamic camera transforms (/tf) at 10 Hz – astra123 Feb 06 '23 at 14:41

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