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Camera Setup - VisionSense

Camera Configuration

VisionSense uses two cameras with guaranteed persistent device assignments:

  1. Mono Camera (Driver Monitoring): IMX219 camera at I2C address 10-0010

    • Device: /dev/video0 (V4L2) / csi://0 (Argus/jetson-utils)
    • Symlink: /dev/video-mono → /dev/video0
    • Resolution: 1920x1080 (also supports 1640x1232, 3280x2464)
    • Purpose: Driver monitoring and interior cabin view

  2. Stereo Camera (Depth Perception): Arducam stereo camera at I2C address 9-000c

    • Device: /dev/video1 (V4L2 only, not Argus-compatible)
    • Symlink: /dev/video-stereo → /dev/video1
    • Resolution: 3840x1200 (side-by-side stereo: 1920x1200 per eye)
    • Purpose: Depth estimation and 3D scene understanding

Persistent Device Names

To ensure camera assignments remain consistent across reboots, udev rules have been configured:

Rule File: /etc/udev/rules.d/99-camera-persistent.rules

# IMX219 mono camera (driver monitoring)
SUBSYSTEM=="video4linux", ATTR{name}=="vi-output, imx219 10-0010", SYMLINK+="video-mono", GROUP="video", MODE="0666"

# Arducam stereo camera (depth perception)
SUBSYSTEM=="video4linux", ATTR{name}=="vi-output, arducam-csi2 9-000c", SYMLINK+="video-stereo", GROUP="video", MODE="0666"

How It Works

The udev rules identify cameras by their hardware names (which include I2C addresses):

  • IMX219 at I2C 0x10 → identified as "imx219 10-0010" → /dev/video0 (V4L2) / csi://0 (Argus)
  • Arducam at I2C 0x0c → identified as "arducam-csi2 9-000c" → /dev/video1 (V4L2 only)

The rules also create convenient symlinks (/dev/video-mono and /dev/video-stereo) for reference, though the actual configuration uses the numbered devices for compatibility with jetson-utils.

Configuration Files

Main Config: config/config.yaml

camera:
    ros__parameters:
        resource: "csi://0"  # IMX219 mono camera - uses Argus/nvarguscamerasrc
        width: 1920
        height: 1080

camera_stereo:
    ros__parameters:
        resource: "/dev/video1"  # Arducam stereo camera - V4L2 only
        width: 3840
        height: 1200

Note: The IMX219 uses csi://0 (Argus sensor index). The Arducam stereo camera is V4L2-only and uses /dev/video1.

Launch Files

All launch files have been updated to use correct device indices:

  • launch/camera_stereo_test.launch.py - Uses config.yaml (reads /dev/video1)
  • launch/camera_stereo_ess.launch.py - Default: /dev/video1 (can override with camera_device argument)
  • launch/stereo_camera.launch.py - Default: /dev/video1 (can override with device argument)

Verification

To verify the camera setup:

# List all video devices
v4l2-ctl --list-devices

# Check mono camera
v4l2-ctl --device=/dev/video-mono --info

# Check stereo camera
v4l2-ctl --device=/dev/video-stereo --info

# Verify symlinks
ls -la /dev/video*

Troubleshooting

If camera assignments change after reboot:

  1. Check if udev rules are present:

    ls -la /etc/udev/rules.d/99-camera-persistent.rules

  2. Reload udev rules:

    sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

  3. Verify symlinks were created:

    ls -la /dev/video-mono /dev/video-stereo

Hardware Connections

  • Mono Camera (IMX219): Connected to CSI port with I2C address 0x10
  • Stereo Camera (Arducam): Connected to CSI port with I2C address 0x0c

Important: The Argus sensor index (csi://0) corresponds to the only Argus-compatible camera (IMX219). The Arducam stereo is V4L2-only and not visible to Argus.