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  4. IMX377 M12 Sensor Over saturated on G channel

IMX377 M12 Sensor Over saturated on G channel

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  • Chad SweetC Offline
    Chad SweetC Offline
    Chad Sweet
    ModalAI Team
    wrote on last edited by
    #4

    The auto white balance is likely reacting to something funny in your environment. Are you in a lab with LED lighting? LED lighting can often cause a problem.

    Bobby BukovecB 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • Alex KushleyevA Offline
      Alex KushleyevA Offline
      Alex Kushleyev
      ModalAI Team
      wrote on last edited by
      #5

      Hello Bobby,

      I have done a quick comparison of IMX377 camera with Iphone X. In this test I took a picture of a color wheel using both cameras in the same lighting conditions. Please see images below - I believe the color quality is comparable, though IMX377 image is a bit brighter overall and not focused very well. It does not look like there is too much green. I used the following pattern for testing : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F1YEEHA -- I suggest that you do similar comparison and see if the colors look acceptable.

      Let us know if you have additional questions.

      Alex


      IMX377
      imx377_color_wheel.jpg

      Iphone X
      iphone_x_color_wheel.jpg

      Bobby BukovecB 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • Chad SweetC Chad Sweet

        The auto white balance is likely reacting to something funny in your environment. Are you in a lab with LED lighting? LED lighting can often cause a problem.

        Bobby BukovecB Offline
        Bobby BukovecB Offline
        Bobby Bukovec
        Contributor
        wrote on last edited by
        #6

        @Chad-Sweet said in IMX377 M12 Sensor Over saturated on G channel:

        ronmen

        Hi Chad,

        Both in an office space and when outside we have the same saturation issue.

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • Alex KushleyevA Alex Kushleyev

          Hello Bobby,

          I have done a quick comparison of IMX377 camera with Iphone X. In this test I took a picture of a color wheel using both cameras in the same lighting conditions. Please see images below - I believe the color quality is comparable, though IMX377 image is a bit brighter overall and not focused very well. It does not look like there is too much green. I used the following pattern for testing : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F1YEEHA -- I suggest that you do similar comparison and see if the colors look acceptable.

          Let us know if you have additional questions.

          Alex


          IMX377
          imx377_color_wheel.jpg

          Iphone X
          iphone_x_color_wheel.jpg

          Bobby BukovecB Offline
          Bobby BukovecB Offline
          Bobby Bukovec
          Contributor
          wrote on last edited by
          #7

          @Alex-Kushleyev

          Thank you for this input. I am slightly confused. This is an image from a video taken outdoors flight testing. 2020-11-05_10-44-41.png

          Where as this second image is from the same day roughly 10 minutes apart using 4k High-resolution Sensor for VOXL (10x10x16mm).

          2020-11-05_10-50-37.png

          Please excuse the under exposure, it was a cloudy day and we did not have the exposure set correctly.
          Maybe this is not just a saturation issue? Let me know your thoughts.

          Best,
          Bobby

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          • Alex KushleyevA Offline
            Alex KushleyevA Offline
            Alex Kushleyev
            ModalAI Team
            wrote on last edited by Alex Kushleyev
            #8

            What software are you using to record the video? Can you please try testing with auto exposure and auto white balance enabled? I believe the AE and AWB work together in some sense, so if you have AE disabled, AWB may not kick in if the right conditions are not met (e.g. too dark, like it seems in both of your tests)

            Bobby BukovecB 1 Reply Last reply
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            • Alex KushleyevA Alex Kushleyev

              What software are you using to record the video? Can you please try testing with auto exposure and auto white balance enabled? I believe the AE and AWB work together in some sense, so if you have AE disabled, AWB may not kick in if the right conditions are not met (e.g. too dark, like it seems in both of your tests)

              Bobby BukovecB Offline
              Bobby BukovecB Offline
              Bobby Bukovec
              Contributor
              wrote on last edited by
              #9

              @Alex-Kushleyev

              We are using rosbag to record the video.

              How exactly can we enable AE and AWB with voxl_cam_ros, found here https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-cam-ros/

              I was not aware this was something we can just turn on?

              1 Reply Last reply
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              • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                Alex KushleyevA Offline
                Alex Kushleyev
                ModalAI Team
                wrote on last edited by
                #10

                Please try using voxl-rtsp tool which can record a video and will have AE and AWB enabled by default (-h for help). voxl-rtsp comes with the software bundle, also found here : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-rtsp

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                  Alex KushleyevA Offline
                  Alex Kushleyev
                  ModalAI Team
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #11

                  If you want voxl-cam-ros to use auto exposure, you should comment out these two lines here : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-cam-manager/-/blob/master/src/SnapdragonCameraManager.cpp#L188

                  params_.setManualExposure(exposure_setting_);
                  params_.setManualGain(gain_setting_);

                  The default setting is auto exposure. The auto white balance should be enabled by default, but like I said previously it may not kick in unless the right image brightness conditions are met (using auto exposure).

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • Chad SweetC Offline
                    Chad SweetC Offline
                    Chad Sweet
                    ModalAI Team
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #12

                    FYI, docs updated here: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-cam-ros/

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • Bobby BukovecB Offline
                      Bobby BukovecB Offline
                      Bobby Bukovec
                      Contributor
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #13

                      @Alex-Kushleyev @Chad-Sweet

                      Hey guys, so good news. With your support we are able to turn on both AWB and AE on both the IMX214 Sensor and the IMX377 sensor.

                      The IMX377 sensor is still more saturated than the other sensor. Please see the pictures below.

                      All settings are exactly the same for both the IMX 377 and IMX 214 sensors

                      IMX 377 Color Wheel
                      target-imx377.png

                      IMX 214 Color Wheel
                      target-imx214.png

                      IMX 377 Outdoors
                      outside-imx377.png

                      IMX 214 Outdoors
                      outside-imx214.png

                      Any thoughts?

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                        Alex KushleyevA Offline
                        Alex Kushleyev
                        ModalAI Team
                        wrote on last edited by Alex Kushleyev
                        #14

                        Nice, some progress..

                        I do see the colors being off in the image. The indoor image (IMX377) with the color wheel looks too "warm".

                        Did you try using voxl-rtsp to record the video? please try, just to double check that you get the same results. Since you are using a ros node, which converts from YUV format to RGB (before encoding as a video), it is possible that the format conversion is not accurate. voxl-rtsp will record the video natively using the built-in hardware video encoder.

                        Also, just to double check, are you using a lens with IR cut filter? If there is no IR cut filter, the image sensor can get saturated with ambient IR light across all colors (not necessarily equally).

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • Chad SweetC Offline
                          Chad SweetC Offline
                          Chad Sweet
                          ModalAI Team
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #15

                          I just checked with our supplier, there is a 650nm IR FILTER

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                            Alex KushleyevA Offline
                            Alex Kushleyev
                            ModalAI Team
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #16

                            Is the filter inside the lens holder or in the lens itself? I think different lenses might be tested here.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                              Alex KushleyevA Offline
                              Alex Kushleyev
                              ModalAI Team
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #17

                              Hi Bobby,

                              I did some more testing and it seems i can get the IMX377 camera to produce green-ish shades under some lighting conditions. I believe that this is due to AWB somehow incorrectly detecting the scene / lighting type. Let me play with this, I think the solution can be to force a particular scene type so that AWB does not try to guess.

                              In my tests, I pointed the camera at a light gray wall and depending on the angle, it would show up as gray or sometimes a bit green-ish.

                              I will follow up soon..

                              Alex

                              1 Reply Last reply
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                              • JP DroneJ Offline
                                JP DroneJ Offline
                                JP Drone
                                Contributor
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #18

                                Hello,
                                I have the same green-ish problem of IMX377.
                                It's also happened in voxl-camera-server v1.1.3 with AWB enabled.
                                Are there any plans to improve it in the future?

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • JP DroneJ Offline
                                  JP DroneJ Offline
                                  JP Drone
                                  Contributor
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #19

                                  When the Gain drop, image turn to Green-ish.
                                  Do you have plan to release WB setting feature?
                                  It would be very useful to be able to change WB from config setting file without changing the source.

                                  image1.png
                                  image2.png

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • Alex KushleyevA Offline
                                    Alex KushleyevA Offline
                                    Alex Kushleyev
                                    ModalAI Team
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #20

                                    Hello @JP-Drone , thank you for bringing this to our attention (again).

                                    I have been looking at improving AWB control some time ago but did not finish. I do agree there is an issue and it arises from the ISP configuration not tuned well for the specific camera. The tuning process is complicated and there is no open source API, but I am hoping that I can make a simple configuration or expose a few parameters to control AWB settings.

                                    Please note that to complicate things even further, the AWB performance / tuning is currently dependent on the image brightness -- there are ISP tuning parameters for color normalization, etc across different gain ranges.

                                    Just to help me a little bit, can you please provide the exact camera part number and gain values you used for the two images?

                                    I will bump this up in priority a bit and will try to address soon.

                                    JP DroneJ 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • Alex KushleyevA Alex Kushleyev

                                      Hello @JP-Drone , thank you for bringing this to our attention (again).

                                      I have been looking at improving AWB control some time ago but did not finish. I do agree there is an issue and it arises from the ISP configuration not tuned well for the specific camera. The tuning process is complicated and there is no open source API, but I am hoping that I can make a simple configuration or expose a few parameters to control AWB settings.

                                      Please note that to complicate things even further, the AWB performance / tuning is currently dependent on the image brightness -- there are ISP tuning parameters for color normalization, etc across different gain ranges.

                                      Just to help me a little bit, can you please provide the exact camera part number and gain values you used for the two images?

                                      I will bump this up in priority a bit and will try to address soon.

                                      JP DroneJ Offline
                                      JP DroneJ Offline
                                      JP Drone
                                      Contributor
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #21

                                      @Alex-Kushleyev
                                      Thank you for your reply.
                                      I used MSU-M0026-1-01.
                                      When changing to Green-ish, the gain becomes 69 (sorry, no snapshot).
                                      I have a few other snapshots.
                                      786fdb6c-da16-4177-a18b-147b99df3493-image.png
                                      7b8f9d28-eba0-4764-b840-f295ceae19c1-image.png

                                      1 Reply Last reply
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