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Orbbec camera component

AICA's orbbec package includes support for a range of Orbbec camera models, including:

  • Gemini 33X
  • Gemini 435Le
  • Gemini 2/2L
  • Femto Bolt/Mega
  • Astra 2

This guide describes all necessary steps to install, configure and run the component using AICA Studio.

Installation​

note

For now, the Orbbec camera component has only been tested on Linux machines. Other platforms might be officially supported in the future.

To ensure proper access to the camera device, special udev rules have to be applied to the Linux system the camera is connected to. Run the following commands in a terminal:

wget -O 99-obsensor-libusb.rules https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aica-technology/OrbbecSDK_ROS2/refs/tags/aica/v2.4.3/orbbec_camera/scripts/99-obsensor-libusb.rules
sudo cp 99-obsensor-libusb.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/99-obsensor-libusb.rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger
tip

These commands will download and apply the udev rules. To ensure that the rules have been applied correctly, the Orbbec Viewer can be used to check the camera feed.

Start the AICA Launcher and add the orbbec package to your configuration.

Adding the Orbbec package

Select Launch AICA Studio to proceed.

Creating and running the example​

Start by creating a new application.

  1. Remove the hardware interface that is included in new applications by default.
  2. Press the (+) button on the top right, and locate the Orbbec Camera component. Click to add to the graph.
  3. Next, connect the component to the start block.
Creating a new Orbbec Camera component
  1. Press Play to start the application.
  2. To see the live camera feed, click on the gear icon on the bottom right and select Launch RViz.
  3. In RViz, select Add > By topic > /orbbec_camera/color_image > Image. This adds a panel that shows the live color image. The depth image can also be found under /orbbec_camera/depth_image > Image.
Starting and checking camera live stream
tip

In case the component does not produce a video stream, try mounting the /run/udev/ volume. In AICA Launcher, expand the Advanced Settings at the bottom, select Add a volume mount and define the volume as shown below. If you still encounter problems getting the video stream, contact the AICA support team.

Mounted udev volume

Parametrizing the Orbbec camera component​

Click on the small gear icon on the Orbbec Camera block to view and edit the available parameters.

Basic Orbbec camera parameters

Hovering over the exclamation marks next to the names shows a detailed description of the corresponding parameter. Let's explain some of these here:

  • Color/Depth Width/Height/FPS: these refer to the resolution and frame rate of the color and depth images. Keep in mind that only specific pairs of integer values apply here. For more information check the camera's documentation.

    tip

    The Orbbec Viewer can also come in handy here, as it shows the available profiles for the connected camera.

  • Enable Alignment: flag that activates the spatial alignment of the depth image to the corresponding color image. Generates a depth image with the same size as the color, with depth expressed in the color camera coordinate system.

  • Enable Threshold Filter: flag that activates a threshold filter in the depth image. If activated, corresponding filter parameters can be directly defined in the YAML editor to configure the filter behavior. To see what parameters can be defined, read the description by hovering over the exclamation mark.

    Threshold filter tooltip parameters
    If the additional parameters are not provided, default values will be used. For instance, activating and configuring the threshold filter would look like this in the YAML editor:

    components:
      orbbec_camera:
        component: orbbec_camera::OBCameraNodeDriver
        display_name: Orbbec Camera
        parameters:
          enable_threshold_filter: true
          threshold_filter_max: 2000
          threshold_filter_min: 500

    Click on Generate Graph to make the changes take effect. Start the application, launch RViz and add a panel for the depth image. Only objects between 0.5 and 2 meters should appear. Keep in mind that most cameras have a minimum Z depth; if the maximum threshold is set below this value, the image will appear blank, but noisy and arbitrarily small/large depth values may still be published. For more information about that, check the camera's documentation.

If needed, follow the same process to activate and configure other available filters.