ifm3d

Library and utilities for working with ifm pmd-based 3D ToF Cameras.

Current Revision

ifm3d version	Supported O3D Firmware Version	Supported O3X Firmware Version	Supported Ubuntu Linux Version	Notes
0.11.2	1.6.2114, 1.8.769, 1.20.1138, 1.23.1506, 1.23.1522	1.0.111, 1.0.122, 1.0.126	16.04,18.04	Less verbose logging in framegrabber, bad pixels flagged as `0` regardless of data type

A full software compatibility matrix, including older releases, is available here.

Organization of the Software

The ifm3d software is organized into modules, they are:

Module Name	Description
camera	Provides an implementation of the XMLRPC protocol for configuring the camera and pmd imager settings.
framegrabber	Provides an implementation of the PCIC protocol for streaming pixel data and triggered image acquisition.
image	Provides a bridge from raw camera bytes to OpenCV and PCL image encodings.
opencv	This is an officially supported and alternate data container to the default Image module. This module provides a bridge from raw camera bytes to OpenCV image encodings without any dependence upon PCL.
pcicclient	Direct access to PCIC to, for example, actuate digital IO.
tools	Provides the ifm3d command line tool for manipulating and introspecting the hardware interactively. It is also suitable for usage within shell scripts to, for example, manage fleets of cameras.

As of version 0.9.0, we have removed the viewer sub-command from the ifm3d command line tool (part of the tools module). The objective was to lessen the dependencies for the core library. However, a clone of the pre-0.9.0 viewer is available in its own repository: ifm3d-pcl-viewer.

Installing the Software

Build Dependencies

Dependency	Dependent ifm3d module	Notes
Boost	framegrabber, pcicclient, tools	We use Boost ASIO (header-only) to handle cross-platform network communication with the camera. While ASIO itself is header-only, it does require runtime linking to Boost System. We also use Boost Program Options to handle command line parsing in the tools module.
CMake	camera, framegrabber, image, opencv, pcicclient, tools	Meta-build framework
Curl	tools	Used to help enable command-line based firmware flashing.
Glog	camera, framegrabber, image, opencv, pcicclient, tools	Logging framework
Gtest	camera, framegrabber, image, opencv, pcicclient, tools	Unit testing framework
libxmlrpc	camera	XMLRPC client used call into the camera configuration interface
OpenCV	image, opencv	N-dimensional array container for encoding 2d and 3d image data
PCL	image	A 3D point cloud encoding. NOTE: the PCL dependency in ifm3d is header-only (we need to construct a point cloud) however there is no runtime linking dependency.

Additionally, if you plan to build the debian packages and have the dependencies computed for you dynamically (see the note below on the repackage target), you will also need:

• Python 2.7
• readelf (Part of the binutils package)
• ldd (Part of the libc-bin package)
• dpkg

We note that, if you are running on a supported Linux, all of these packages are available through the offical debian repositories and should be a simple apt-get away from being installed on your machine.

Use the following steps to install all the library dependencies on Debian based systems

$ sudo apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade
$ sudo apt-get update && apt-get install -y libboost-all-dev git jq libcurl4-openssl-dev \
                                            libgtest-dev libgoogle-glog-dev  \
                                            libxmlrpc-c++8-dev libopencv-dev \
                                            libpcl-dev libproj-dev \
                                            build-essential coreutils cmake

Note: The package name may differ in different flavours of Linux. Above apt-get commands are specific to Debian based systems

Building From Source

The default build

By default, the ifm3d build enables the camera, framegrabber, image, and tools modules. Building the software follows the usual cmake idiom of:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..
$ make
$ make check
$ sudo make install

Alternatively, if you are on a supported Linux platform (see above), the preferred method of building and installing the software is:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..
$ make
$ make check
$ make package
$ make repackage
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-camera.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-framegrabber.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-image.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-tools.deb

(The version number embedded in the deb file will be dependent upon which version of the ifm3d software you are building)

A few important notes when building from source:

• For the make check step, you will need to have your camera plugged in. The camera settings will get mutated by this process, so, you are encouraged to back up your configuration if you'd like to later restore your camera to its pre-testing state. You are also encouraged to test against the camera (or cameras) you plan to use. I.e., O3D, O3X, etc.

• Many ifm3d users ultimately plan to use this library along with its associated ROS wrapper. If this is the case, you need to be sure that the version of OpenCV that you link to in both ifm3d and ifm3d-ros are consistent. To give you some control over that, the build process allows you to explicitly call out which version of OpenCV you wish to use. For example, if you are using OpenCV 2.4, your cmake line above should look something like: $ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DFORCE_OPENCV2=ON ... Similarly, if you using OpenCV 3, your cmake line above should look something like: $ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DFORCE_OPENCV3=ON ..

• Experienced users may be puzzled by the repackage step. If you are simply building for your local machine, you can skip it (albeit, with minimal risk). This step is used to dynamically compute the debian dependencies for the particular module. Due to how we are partitioning out the software, this approach is necessary vs. the more traditional CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_SHLIBDEPS wrapper around dpkg-shlibdeps. We basically created a version of that tool that exploits a-priori information about the ifm3d environment to properly compute the debian dependencies. If you are building debs on a build machine to be distributed out to various runtime computers, you will certainly want to execute the repackage target so that you are ensured the runtime machines have the proper dependency chain in place.

A build that does not require PCL

Many ifm3d users seem to be moving away from PCL. To that end, it is possible to build ifm3d without any reliance on PCL yet still maintain a bridge to OpenCV image encodings. (NOTE: As of 0.9.0, it is also quite easy to build your own image encoding to interoperate within the ifm3d ecosystem.)

Building ifm3d without a PCL dependency looks like the following:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_MODULE_OPENCV=ON -DBUILD_MODULE_IMAGE=OFF ..
$ make
$ make check
$ make package
$ make repackage
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-camera.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-framegrabber.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-opencv.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-tools.deb

A sumo-build

If you want to build everything:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_MODULE_OPENCV=ON -DBUILD_MODULE_PCICCLIENT=ON ..
$ make -j 8
$ make check
$ make package
$ make repackage
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-camera.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-framegrabber.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-image.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-opencv.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-tools.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ifm3d_0.9.0_amd64-pcicclient.deb

Additional Resources

• Building on Windows
• Basic library usage
• ifm3d command line tool
• Configuring Your Camera
• Viewing the Point Cloud
• Implementing your own image container
• ROS
• Troubleshoot

Known Issues, Bugs, and our TODO list

Please see the Github Issue Tracker.

LICENSE

Please see the file called LICENSE.