Connect camera to RoboRIO
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Receive input over the radio's network in case we can't get Raspberry Pis.
Parking this for now, was unable to get a feed transmitted without a secondary processor. roboRIOs use NI Linux, which I found does not have package management tools installed. In order to prevent overwhelming the severely underpowered processor, I do not want to attempt to install apt and python3. Also, we would need to maintain an open SSH connection throughout the competition, meaning that network traffic might be slowed.
I'm really surprised that this camera cannot act as a network camera on its own. Is there no way to connect the camera to a network?
Unfortunately, Orbbec Astra cameras do not have a network adapter or any type of microprocessor on them. The Limelight is able to connect to the network because it features a built-in network adapter and processor (since it generates its own webpage for tuning). The only way to utilize an Astra is to connect it to a device via USB. Since the camera has proprietary drivers, we also can't just take the video feed from /dev/video0, it needs to be read through OpenNI2 and converted to an appropriate image type. OpenNI also allows synchronicity between the color and depth sensors, which we wouldn't be able to achieve through a network transmission, even if it were possible. I attempted reading /dev/video0 from the roboRIO over SSH while a standard Microsoft webcam was connected via USB, but was unsuccessful. This was most likely due to missing components in NI Linux.
In summary, the only way I can see to use the Astras is to connect them via USB to a microprocessor, but that ends up having the same effects as a Raspberry Pi.
If you'd like, I can show you what I've tried thus far and we can brainstorm a potential solution when you're in (Gus told me Tuesdays and Thursdays?)
Yeah, I'm in on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we can discuss then. My concern is that if we can't get an 8GB Pi to work with, the Astra Mini may not be the camera for us. Let's discuss Tuesday.
Closing this since we were able to source a Raspberry Pi (arriving Wednesday, tentatively). We were also able to get a fast video stream to the driver's station, so that's been taken care of.