Ucamserver

Introduction

Intended for image handling functions.

The following camera-related plug-ins are available:

• Camera control (camget, camset etc)
• Image access (imageget, imageset) access to fresh images.
• Image pool handling (poolget poollist etc.) pool of imege buffers with image handling functionality.
• Guidemark detection (gmkget) giudemark 3D pose and code
• Road outline plugin (pathget) polygon with road outline matching a seed area.
• Sample plugin (center of gravity)

The following cameras are supported:

• Kinect
• Guppy (firewire)
• Any (USB) camera that supports v4l - using module auv4lgst.so.0

Run the server

Run the server in a directory with a configuration file (ucamserver.ini)

ucamserver

It then shows a command prompt:

>>

To monitor images and results use the monitoring client UCLIENT or AUCLIENT (or the server console directly - or as a last resort TELNET)

See:

>> module list

For further help about the server and a list of all available commands (from all plug-ins) use:

>> help

Each of the listed commands should have an on-line help function, e.g:

>> camset help

Typical configuration SMR

A camera server configuration (ucamserver.ini) for the SMR could be:

do cmd="mkdir -p log_ucamserver"
server imagepath="log_ucamserver"
server datapath="log_ucamserver"
server replayPath="log"
server port=24920
#
module load=var
module load=gmk
module load=odopose
module load=aupoly.so.0
# log odometry (as seen by ucamserver)
odopose log
module load="aukinect.so.0"
var kinect.desiredframerate=3
kinect open
# convert to BGR (default is Bayer GRBG)
poolpush img=18 cmd="poolget toimg=22 fmt=BGR silent"
# log kinect (RGB) images (every other image (i=2))
poolset img=22 log i=2
# ballfinder - see 'ball help' and 'var ball' for info
module load="auball.so.0"
# use the image to find balls every 3 images.
poolpush img=22 i=3 cmd="ball blue debug='true'"

Logfile for odometry and used images will then be produced in datapath, and the images saved in the imagepata.

Move them (including imgpool.log) into a subdirectory, e.g. log_ucamserver/log/ for replay.

Unpack of packed imagelog

If 'move-to-usb' were used to save to disk, then the bash script 'unpack-tars' may be used (in the directory with the tar-files):

#!/bin/bash
files="$(ls *.bmp.tar 2>/dev/null)" 
# declare integer variables
declare -i cnt=0
for X in $files
do
  tar -xf $X
  cnt=$cnt+1
done

The images are then available for replay.

Images to mpeg video

The images can be packed into a video sequence using a script. If images from more than one camera is used, then it may be a good idea to make an empty directory and link all the images from one of the cameras to this directory first, e.g.:

mkdir left
cd left
ln -s ../*__10* .

A script like this may then be used to pack them into a video sequence:

#! /bin/bash
let COUNTER=1000000
for f in $( ls imgC/*.bmp ); do 
  echo convert $f imgCpng/hako-20080821-left-$COUNTER.png
  convert $f imgCpng/hako-20080821-left-$COUNTER.png
  let PREV=$COUNTER
  let COUNTER+=1
  done
# convert to mpeg format
# -r 10 frames per second
# -b 5000000 bitrate på 5Mbit/sec
# -y betyder overskriv destination
ffmpeg -y -r 25 -b 5000000 -i imgCpng/hako-20080821-left-1%06d.png path.mpeg
ls -l *.mpeg

The script list all files files - in this case all *.bmp files - then converts them to *.png format, and - most important - adds a number to the filename, that will be the image sequence in the video.

The ffmpeg will do the rest, with the parameters as shown.

Replay configuration

Make a directory for the replay configuration, e.g. replay/ballfinder:

mkdir ~/replay/ballfinder
cd ~/replay/ballfinder

place a copy of the cameraserver configuration file ucamserver.ini in this directory.

Make a subdirectory in this directory, e.g. called log

mkdir log
cd log

Place the logfiles (odoPose.log and image.log) in this directory

cp <sourcedir>/*.log .

Make a further subdirectory for the images, this directory MUST be called imgorg

mkdir imgorg
cp <imagepath>/*.png imgorg/

The ucamserver.ini need to be modified slightly to enable the replay:

server dataPath="/vhome/jca/logfiles"
server imagepath="/vhome/jca/logfiles/imgorg"
server replayPath="/vhome/jca/replay/ballfinder"              <--- new
module load=var
module load=gmk
module load=odopose
odopose replay                                                <--- new
# odopose log                                                 <--- changed to comment
# camera parameters for GUPPY camera (device 10)
camset device=10 focallength=650
camset device=10 posx=0.4 posy=0.0 posz=0.87 rotphi=0.3
camset device=10 replay                                       <--- new
module load=path
# ballfinder and configuration
module load="./aub2.so.0"
var b2.redlim="105 127 129 180"
var b2.bluelim="115 200 95 132"
var b2.ballsize=0.12
var b2.topline=75
var b2.minsize=20
var b2.maxsize=65
# log images from device 10
# camset device=10 log=false                                  <--- changed to comment
# use an image every 1.5 seconds (image is logged and available in image pool)
# push t=1.5 cmd="imageget img=10"                            <--- changed to comment
# use the image to find balls every time image 10 is updated
poolpush img=10 cmd="ball blue debug='true'"

Then the replay can commence, first start the camera server in the configuration directory

cd ~/replay/ballfinder
ucamserver 

When the cameraserver is started, then the stepping can start

>> camset step
<camset info="Stepped to 1266588079.109762 line 2 in image.log"/>
Ball position  x:   4.1385  y:   0.5525  z:   0.2767
>>

This will advance to the next image in the logfile, and some messages may be printed on the console. The image will be loaded into the image-pool with the same image number as the original device number (here 10).

The odometry pose may be stepped too:

>> odopose step
<odopose tod="1266588094.529696" time="15:01:34.529" logLine="2"/>
>>

This may advance the image.log file too (to the same log-time), and thus trigger another image and any command related to that image.

Image.log file format

The image log file has one line per image, like:

1287579606.142885 159 120 160 1050.00 2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 img00000159-cam02-20101020_150006.142.png
1287579608.842862 186 120 160 1050.00 2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 img00000186-cam02-20101020_150008.842.png
1287579609.642899 194 120 160 1050.00 2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 img00000194-cam02-20101020_150009.642.png
1287579610.242894 200 120 160 1050.00 2 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 img00000200-cam02-20101020_150010.242.png

and the following format on each line:

• timestamp (seconds since 1 jan 1970)
• image serial number
• image height
• image width
• camera focal length in pixels (as set in camera configuration file ucamserver.ini)
• camera device number (here device 2)
• camera x pose relative to robot (forward)
• camera y pose relative to robot (left)
• camera z pose relative to robot (up)
• camera Omega Rotation (in radians) around x-axis
• camera Phi Rotation (in radians) around y-axis
• camera Kappa Rotation (in radians) around z-axis
• image filename

Odometry logfile format

The odopmetry - as well as the map and utm logfiles has the following format:

1266588182.049364 0.593 0.114 0.46900 0.000 -1 1266588182.049630
1266588182.119369 0.604 0.119 0.48700 0.000 -1 1266588182.119790
1266588182.189390 0.614 0.125 0.50450 0.000 -1 1266588182.189852
1266588182.269268 0.625 0.131 0.52320 0.000 -1 1266588182.269529
1266588182.457870 0.647 0.144 0.56050 0.000 -1 1266588182.458362

With the following meaning

• timestamp in seconds (when the data is assumed to be valid)
• x-position in meters
• y-position in meters
• heading in radians
• velocity in m/s
• data quality (if any)
• data source (update source, -1 is from MRC using the MRC connection to the server)
• additional timestamp (when the data was put into the logfile)