Multiple Cameras?

[lunamoonthroat]

Hey All you FIRST'ers!

We're trying to run two cameras on our robot for ranging, but the AxisCamera is a singleton class (we're using java), and our custom code (overriding the actual AxisCamera doesn't seem to interface for creating multiple cameras. Any ideas? Regards,

[flamer075]

Hey, my team decided that we wanted 2 cameras going with a dual live feed last year. We also coded in java, but for getting two cameras at once I would recommend using a smart dashboard or using labview and modifying it so you can get two live feeds at once. If you don't mind why would you want to use two cameras for this game.

[Kusha]

Originally Posted by flamer075

Hey, my team decided that we wanted 2 cameras going with a dual live feed last year. We also coded in java, but for getting two cameras at once I would recommend using a smart dashboard or using labview and modifying it so you can get two live feeds at once. If you don't mind why would you want to use two cameras for this game.

Why did you use duel cameras last year? If you don't mind me asking.

[xraymypanda]

With regards to the set up of two cameras:www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2634
However, beware exceeding your bandwidth limit.

[lunamoonthroat]

Thanks @xraymypanda! However, I already looked at that document, and it may be helpful for C++ and LabView, but for the Java bindings, it is unfortunately mute. Because the Java binding is somehow a singleton due to the way it is ported, after AxisCamera.getInstance(ip1) is called, AxisCamera.getInstance(ip2) returns a reference to ip1 instead.
@flamer075: We are trying to get more accurate ranging measurements from stereoscopic vision.

[mathking]

We used two cameras in Java last year using Smartdashboard. We did it because one was for targeting and the other (added after the regional for the championships) was looking down for ball gathering purposes. Others have said it but beware of bandwidth issues. If you want some technical help let me know and I will put one of our programmers in touch with you. Actually I think that some two camera code is already posted on our github repository.

[IndySam]

Like Greg we used two cameras last year, one mounted high with the shooter and the other down low with the ball pickup mostly used to see under the bridge.

We didn't need high resolution for either task so we set the resolution very low and never had any trouble

[JohnFogarty]

I used two cameras as well. SmartDashboard is by far the easiest thing to use.
Make sure you set the less needed camera to a lower resolution so you don't max out your bandwidth.

[lunamoonthroat]

By SmartDashboard, do you mean connecting both cameras to the dashboard, then getting images from the dashboard instead of the camera directly?