argos3d_p100_ros_pkg

This ROS package uses an old api for the Bluetechnix Argos 3d p100 sensor.

There is a new package (https://github.com/voxel-dot-at/bta_tof_driver) that uses the new BltToFApi developed by Bluetechnix for interacting with their sensors.

We recommend to use the new bta_tof_driver package.

ROS package for Bluetechnix Argos3D P100 ToF camera.

Summary

This package explains how to configure your system and ROS to use the Argos3D P100 ToF camera. The package includes an example allowing you to visualize images using the rviz viewer included in ROS. It demostrates how to use the camera within ROS and the different parameter configurations of the P100 as well as its capabilities.

To get more information about the Time of Flight camera Argos3D P100 please visit Bluetechnix website: http://ww2.bluetechnix.com/en/products/depthsensing/product/argos3d-p100/

First step: Get ROS

The argos3d_p100_ros_kg works with ROS versions groovy and hydro. You can use catkin workspaces or the previous rosbuild to configure, compile and get ready ROS.

We will point in the above lines how to get ros_hydro and catkin workspace ready from the tutorials of the ROS web site.

In Ubuntu follow the ROS installation tutorial:

http://wiki.ros.org/hydro/Installation/Ubuntu.

Why to use catkin workspaces:

http://wiki.ros.org/catkin

http://wiki.ros.org/catkin_or_rosbuild

http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/create_a_workspace

To configure a catkin workspace in your ROS installation, follow this:

ROS tutorial: http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials/InstallingandConfiguringROSEnvironment

Known Problems

Be sure your libboost library version is >= 1.49. Previous versions as 1.46 generate errors while compiling argos3d_p100-ros-pkg.

1. Configuration

Setup P100 USB rules and native libraries

The first step is to add the PMDSDK to our system. (The PMDSDK is copyrighted software and it is distributed with your Argos3D P100)

1.1 Usb Device rules

After unziping the software distributed with your Argos3D P100 camera, browse to the directory of your operating system version.

Install the driver for using the ToF camera:

In Ubuntu/linux copy the file from the driver folder to /etc/udev/rules.d/

cd driver
sudo cp 10-pmd-ubuntu.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

This will set the right permissions to allow not sudo users to use the camera.

1.2 Libraries setup

Add PMDSDK to your system (use the right version for your system 32 or 64 bits).

1. Add the dynamically linked shared object library libpmdaccess2. Use one of the following options:

You have different ways to add it to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

• You can simply copy the libpmdaccess2.so file to /usr/local/lib as root (or the defauld search library path of your system)
• Add a .conf file (like pmd_camera_L64.conf) with the path of your library in /etc/ld.so.conf.d. The file must contaning the following lines:

#PMD camera support
/.../PMDSDK/bin
/.../PMDSDK/include

replace the dots with the absolute path to the PMDSDK directory

1. Add includes and dynamic plugin libraries

• Move the PMDSDK folder to a directory where the operating system can find it (/usr/include)
• or set an environment variable called $PMDDIR to the path where there is the PMDSDK.

After adding libraries, update the links and cache of the share libraries with:

ldconfig

2. Installation

2.1 Install dependencies

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