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  4. Depth Information Source Unclear

Depth Information Source Unclear

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Starling & Starling 2
starling2 maxvoadepth sensordfs
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  • G Offline
    G Offline
    griffin
    Contributor
    wrote on last edited by griffin
    #1

    Following the 0.9 VOA tutorial we cannot start up the voxl-dfs-server via systemctl enable or start, it shows enabled but does not run even after restarting the drone.

    • Checking in the VOXL portal the VOA point cloud shows that some kind of depth information is being gathered.
    • Does DFS occur through some process other than the dfs-server in the 1.0+ version of the SDK? Or does the depth information originate from the TOF sensor?
    • The config file from the VOA tutorial is missing / has been renamed to voxl-vision-hub.conf, there is a voxl-vision-hub process running; is this where depth information is produced in newer SDK versions?

    Additionally:

    • The tof_pc and tof views in VOXL portal seems to be rotated s.t. z is forward, y is left and x is down which does not match the NED/FRD frames of the other views. Is this correct?
    • The VOXL mapper does not populate on the portal (blank scene) and the mapper service does not appear for voxl-inspect-services.

    What is the source of depth information on a Starling 2 Max drone with the TOF module?
    Any help is appreciated.

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    • James StrawsonJ Offline
      James StrawsonJ Offline
      James Strawson
      ModalAI Team
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Hi Griffin,

      DFS stands for depth-from-stereo and is only used on the M500 and Sentinel platforms that have stereo cameras.

      Starlings use the PMD TOF camera which outputs 3D point points directly from voxl-camera-server. That data is in the reference frame of the camera such that Z points out the lens, X to the right of the image, and Y pointing downwards.

      voxl-vision-hub then consumes that data and rotates it based on the mounting location described in /etc/modalai/extrinsics.conf and the current position/orientation of the drone as reported by VIO.

      voxl-mapper is not installed by default as it's not part of the core SDK, however it is locally available and can be installed with apt install voxl-mapper without needing an internet connection.

      Best,
      James

      G 1 Reply Last reply
      1
      • James StrawsonJ James Strawson

        Hi Griffin,

        DFS stands for depth-from-stereo and is only used on the M500 and Sentinel platforms that have stereo cameras.

        Starlings use the PMD TOF camera which outputs 3D point points directly from voxl-camera-server. That data is in the reference frame of the camera such that Z points out the lens, X to the right of the image, and Y pointing downwards.

        voxl-vision-hub then consumes that data and rotates it based on the mounting location described in /etc/modalai/extrinsics.conf and the current position/orientation of the drone as reported by VIO.

        voxl-mapper is not installed by default as it's not part of the core SDK, however it is locally available and can be installed with apt install voxl-mapper without needing an internet connection.

        Best,
        James

        G Offline
        G Offline
        griffin
        Contributor
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        @James-Strawson

        Hey James,

        Thanks for the tip, installing via apt install voxl-mapper and then running with systemctl start voxl-mapper worked out of the box.

        Kind regards,
        Griffin

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