version for ROS2-foxy about pylon-ros-camera

[pablo-quilez]

Hello,

I think makes a lot of sense to port the driver to ROS2. However, the necessary effort to do it is relative high. Therefore it is not a task which can start immediately. I keep open the issue for the future.

Cheers,
Pablo

[jmarsik]

I have a good message for all of you who are looking for Basler camera driver for ROS2. @fhwedel-hoe with my little help and testing updated his "instant" driver package originally meant only for USB cameras so that it now works without a problem with both USB and GigE cameras! It has a few nice features:

• camera configuration through PFS files
• camera selection by ROS2 parameters
• zero-copy handling of images
• possibility to use ROS2 node composition to create high-performance image pipelines inside a single node

The driver was moved to a new repository with a name without "usb" in it.

Check it out here: https://github.com/fhwedel-hoe/pylon_instant_camera

[FrancoisPicardDTI]

The ROS2 camera driver is now available through the branch galactic. I am closing this issue.

[MCP-TTC]

I agree, a ROS2 driver is a key component for ROS2 in industrial applications

[marccastor2]

Hi, I'm interested into your question, did you find any solution?

[cf95]

Hi, I didn't find one yet, but i wasn't searching or developing one. I guess an easy solution would be to use the ros1 bridge (drawback: you would need a full ros1 installation on your device) or look into the code here, what has to be modified to get it working with ros2. Anyhow, depending on when you would need it, I have to look into this for my master thesis, but it may take a month or two until I get to the point, where I really need it. I can then report my solution here

[bigrobinson]

I second this emotion. ROS2 drivers would be great.

[fhwedel-hoe]

In the mean-time, I adapted my very basic package. It has little features, but might be interesting for anyone who seeks a simple solution which "just works" for now.

Edit: With fhwedel-hoe/pylon_usb-instant-camera@57cf759, I am now employing the IBufferFactory (great design choice in the SDK, kudos to the developers!) which allows me to avoid copying the image data. Now the entire image processing pipeline can work on shared memory, which has great performance benefits in ROS 2.

[jmarsik]

Is there any progress in this matter? We would also benefit from having a ROS2 native driver for Basler cameras.

[fhwedel-hoe]

I could use some input regarding my driver, especially when it comes to performance. It does not support any kind of dynamic reconfiguration so it might be unsuitable for your needs.

[jmarsik]

@fhwedel-hoe I think it would be ok. But our camera is connected through GigE Vision :(

[jmarsik]

@fhwedel-hoe would it be complicated to add basic support for GigE Vision cameras to your driver?

[fhwedel-hoe]

@jmarsik Code-wise, it is trivial. I replaced "Usb" with "GigE" and https://github.com/fhwedel-hoe/pylon_usb-instant-camera/tree/ros2_gige compiles. Since I do not have a Basler GigE camera at my hands, I cannot run tests so I have no idea whether this actually works. Feel free to give it a try (the package itself is still called pylon_usb_instant_camera with the PylonUSBCameraNode executable named node – I did not make the replacement in the names). Feel free to open an issue https://github.com/fhwedel-hoe/pylon_usb-instant-camera for further inquiries so we can keep this discussion focused on the official driver.