Intel RealSense cameras now supported on ubilinux™

Javier Arteaga

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Michael McCool

Got this working. Fantastic!

It's also worth mentioning that Intel just posted ROS wrappers for the librealsense driver, which is the one that the UP uses:
http://www.github.com/intel-ros/realsense
This was just released today and I'm working on getting it going on the UP.

Of course you need ROS first... just follow the instructions for Debian Jessie in the following:
http://wiki.ros.org/ROSberryPi/Installing ROS Indigo on Raspberry Pi
Yes, I know this page is entitled "Installing ROS Indigo on the Raspberry Pi". However, the instructions for Debian Jessie work fine on the UP (although I AM getting a compilation error for the Collada build), although you can ignore the patches for the ARM. I suggest using the -j 2 option otherwise you run out of memory.

This is a source install, which is not as bad as it sounds, the build is fairly automated, and you have to figure out how to build things to do your own coding anyhow. There is another site that has binaries for Debian Jessie but I haven't tried it yet.

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Disclosure: I am an Intel employee.

Michael McCool

I got the ROS wrapper for librealsense working too. Very nice!

Michael McCool

Here are some notes on the process. The following assumes you want to use ROS as well, so you also get a basic ROS install following these instructions.

1. Install ROS
Generally, follow the instructions here for Debian Jessie. You can ignore Collada if you are doing a "basic" install, it seems to only matter for the desktop install. Use -j 1 to avoid running out of memory (some of the packages need a lot for their build for some reason...). This is slower (it only uses one core) but surer. It's a good idea to also close down any other unnecessary programs while building, i.e. don't do web browsing and stuff on the system while waiting.
Even then, some things run out of memory, so create a 4GB swap file using the instructions
here.

Before installing, install some packages manually that for some reason do not get resolved automatically:

sudo apt-get install libpcl-dev chkconfig checkinstall cmake libboost-filesystem-dev libxml2-dev python-pip python-setuptools python-yaml python-distribute python-docutils python-dateutil python-six g++ pkg-config libusb-1.0-0-dev libglfw3-dev libxrandr-dev libxi-dev

As part of the ROS install, include ros_comm as well as the following packages
required by the RealSense ROS wrapper:
[ul]
[li] dynamic_reconfigure[/li]
[li] nodelet[/li]
[li] cv_bridge[/li]
[li] image_transport[/li]
[li]camera_info_manager[/li]
[li]pcl_ros[/li]
[/ul]
The following are needed for testing:
[ul][li] image_view[/li][/ul]
I have attached a script that MAY do the right thing for you. Read through it first before trying it in your environment. No warrantees, etc. Rather than running it I would suggest you just execute the commands one by one using cut-and-paste.

Note: it might be possible to avoid some of the above by including the RealSense ROS wrapper as part of the ROS install so the dependency analyser can see it... I have not explored this option yet.

2. Install RealSense drivers
Follow instructions at
https://github.com/IntelRealSense/librealsense
or better,
http://www.up-community.org/UpWiki/index.php/RealSense
Make sure you dist-upgrade the kernel first and reboot as it says to do.

3. Installing ROS drivers for RealSense
Follow instructions at
https://github.com/intel-ros/realsense/tree/indigo-devel/camera
To add /usr/local/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, add following line to
/etc/environment as superuser (or using sudo):

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib"

log out and log back in, check with

env | grep LD_LIBRARY_PATH

I tested by setting in a separate workspace than the ROS install. Putting it in the same workspace as the source build might be a better idea.

Michael McCool

I also use sudo in the above, so install that first

DCleri

Hi Mike,

Thank you very much for your great contribution!

We really appreciate your help in getting ROS working on UP board.
Would you mind to include your tutorial to the UP Wiki? It is OK to include the tutorial as it is now on this page:
http://www.up-community.org/UpWiki/index.php?title=ROS&action=edit&redlink=1

Thanks!

Michael McCool

Fine to put it on the wiki, I don't have time for the next week or so to move it there. but feel free.
BTW, I did recently manage to get the "desktop" version of ROS installed as well, except for collada and roslisp.
Will also be good to put instructions for that up on the wiki, but they are a variation of what's here for ROS desktop:
http://wiki.ros.org/ROSberryPi/Installing ROS Indigo on Raspberry Pi
Desktop-full seems to be a no-go for the moment. Also the workaround on the above site for installing Collada manually is not working for me for some reason. Collada installs fine, but ROS cannot find it later and fails anyhow.

WK Loh

Newbie here. can someone snap a photo how the realsense is connected to UPBOARD? how many realsense camera can it support? is there any special power requirement?