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withrobot / oCam

oCam - USB 3.0 Board Camera
GNU General Public License v3.0
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oCam-1MGN-U external trigger with auto exposure #6

Open kozuch opened 7 years ago

kozuch commented 7 years ago

Hello,

I have 2 questions:

1) Is it possible to trigger the oCam-1MGN-U global shutter camera externally? I mean real wired external trigger via a dedicated pin on the camera. I see that on the back the camera has 3 pins exposed (besides the USB connector) but I could not find any documentation for the PINs. In case HW trigger is not possible - what about a software "trigger" via USB by changing some camera registers (Point Grey cameras can do sw trigger)? The sw-trigger is usually not so accurate (fast) as HW trigger but may actually be enough for part of the applications.

2) Given the external trigger would be possible can the sensor do auto-exposure with external trigger? This feature is not really standard one but there are cameras that can do it (example: Point Grey Chameleon 3 series). I got 2 Point Grey Firefly MV USB 2.0 cameras at $300 each and later have found out that this particular camera can not do auto-exposure with ext. HW trigger, even though the sensor is capable of it (I guess they did not include the feature to the camera's firmware).

Reason for my questions - I need to setup a stereo camera where 2 cameras will be synchronized and will each run on its own auto-exposure mode. The camera will be used in environment with dynamic ligting (passenger car) so I can not use fixed manual exposure. I tried to implement my own autoexposure mode for the Firefly MV but was not really successful (it surely is possible but out of my capabilities).

Btw. I also could not find a general manual for the camera - is there one?

Thanks for your answers in advance!

mzahana commented 6 years ago

@kozuch Have you found an answer yet?

I would like to sync between a global shutter camera and an IMU for visual inertial odometry. I was planning to get the oCam-1MGN-U, but I have to make sure that it supports ext trigger.

kozuch commented 6 years ago

Sorry I do not remenber anymore. Look at odroid forums. I think no new feature has been introduced which means there is no ext trigger still. But I may be wrong.

tiralonghipol commented 3 years ago

@kozuch @mzahana any update on this?