Multiple raw greyscale camera streams
Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:50 am
Hi, I'm about to decide whether a system of about 4 to 6 OptiTrack V100-R2-FS cameras is the right choice for me.
For research reasons, a necessary requirement is to have full raw access to all the cameras at the same time, but still in sync mode. So here are my specific questions:
1.) Can I retrieve the original raw camera pictures (unprocessed) as live stream, from all 4 (or 6) cameras connected to the computer, synchronized, all at the same time?
2.) Since the USB 2.0 throughput is limited to roughly 32 MB/s for a single port, and since 1 camera (640 x 480 * 100 Hz) is producing ~ 29 MB/s of uncompressed greyscale data, it seems to me that all live cameras views won't be available through the OptiHub at the same time (since it's only connected to 1 USB port on the client PC)?
3.) Would it be possible to receive all live raw data, if all cameras were connected to separate USB ports? How could I achieve the synchronization in that case (by using external synchronization-cables, connected to another OptiHub)?
Would buying extra external USB 2.0 cards help, to get 4 full USB buses for 4 cameras?
4.) If all cameras used the MJPEG compression mode, would it then be possible to retrieve the live streams of all cams at once through the OptiHub?
5.) Would this multiple raw live streaming that I need also work via the DirectShow driver? I read an old issue where it said that the DirectShow filter only supports 1 camera at a time...
One more question, though not really related to my problem above:
6.) When invoking the filter switch via the API, how long does the switching process take (just an order of magnitude: ms, seconds, or minutes), i.e. how long aftet calling that function does it take until I receive the first valid IR / greyscale frame?
Thanks for your time,
Linus
For research reasons, a necessary requirement is to have full raw access to all the cameras at the same time, but still in sync mode. So here are my specific questions:
1.) Can I retrieve the original raw camera pictures (unprocessed) as live stream, from all 4 (or 6) cameras connected to the computer, synchronized, all at the same time?
2.) Since the USB 2.0 throughput is limited to roughly 32 MB/s for a single port, and since 1 camera (640 x 480 * 100 Hz) is producing ~ 29 MB/s of uncompressed greyscale data, it seems to me that all live cameras views won't be available through the OptiHub at the same time (since it's only connected to 1 USB port on the client PC)?
3.) Would it be possible to receive all live raw data, if all cameras were connected to separate USB ports? How could I achieve the synchronization in that case (by using external synchronization-cables, connected to another OptiHub)?
Would buying extra external USB 2.0 cards help, to get 4 full USB buses for 4 cameras?
4.) If all cameras used the MJPEG compression mode, would it then be possible to retrieve the live streams of all cams at once through the OptiHub?
5.) Would this multiple raw live streaming that I need also work via the DirectShow driver? I read an old issue where it said that the DirectShow filter only supports 1 camera at a time...
One more question, though not really related to my problem above:
6.) When invoking the filter switch via the API, how long does the switching process take (just an order of magnitude: ms, seconds, or minutes), i.e. how long aftet calling that function does it take until I receive the first valid IR / greyscale frame?
Thanks for your time,
Linus