camera_driver

This package provides a ROS 2 component for capturing video from a camera and publishing it as a ROS topic.

How it Works

The camera_driver_exe node captures video from a specified camera device. It is a generic driver that can be configured via parameters in a launch file.

• Input: A video device accessible by the system (e.g., a USB webcam).
• Processing: It uses a backend library (like OpenCV) to connect to the camera, configure its resolution and frame rate, and capture frames.
• Output: Publishes images to a ROS topic, typically as sensor_msgs/Image or sensor_msgs/CompressedImage.

Example Usage

This driver is intended to be used within a launch file, where its parameters can be set.

graph TD
    subgraph Hardware
        A[USB Camera]
    end

    subgraph Camera Driver
        B(camera_driver_exe)
    end

    subgraph ROS System
        C["/camera/image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)"]
    end

    A --> B;
    B --> C;

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How to Use

This node is usually started from a launch file in a higher-level package like mira2_perception. Here is an example of how it might be launched:

<!-- Example from mira2_perception/launch/camera_1.launch -->
<launch>
    <arg name="vendor_id"     default="0x0c45"/>
    <arg name="product_id"    default="0x6366"/>
    <arg name="image_width"   default="1280"/>
    <arg name="image_height"  default="720"/>
    <arg name="framerate"     default="30"/>

    <node pkg="camera_driver"
          exec="camera_driver_exe"
          name="my_camera"
          output="screen">
        <param name="vendor_id"     value="$(var vendor_id)"/>
        <param name="product_id"    value="$(var product_id)"/>
        <param name="image_width"   value="$(var image_width)"/>
        <param name="image_height"  value="$(var image_height)"/>
        <param name="framerate"     value="$(var framerate)"/>
    </node>
</launch>

To run it manually, you would use ros2 run:

ros2 run camera_driver camera_driver_exe --ros-args -p device_path:="/dev/video0"

External Resources

• ROS 2 image_transport
• OpenCV Camera Capture