Ethernet Camera not on Dashboard

[team4127]

My current issue is that we have the Axis Camera set up via Ethernet, but it doesn't show up on the dashboard. I have tried going into the Axis setup and changing the host name of the camera to "axis-camera" but it has yielded no results. I also tried setting the code in LabView to use the camera's IP address instead of a host name, but no change there. Anyone have an idea of what I can do to get my camera to show up on my Dashboard?

[redsox11]

Originally Posted by team4127

My current issue is that we have the Axis Camera set up via Ethernet, but it doesn't show up on the dashboard. I have tried going into the Axis setup and changing the host name of the camera to "axis-camera" but it has yielded no results. I also tried setting the code in LabView to use the camera's IP address instead of a host name, but no change there. Anyone have an idea of what I can do to get my camera to show up on my Dashboard?

If you type in the camera's IP address in a web-browser does the camera show up? If so, you can just use that page to view the camera instead of the dashboard. We couldn't get our camera to show up on the dashboard either so we just used chrome to view the camera.

[team4127]

Originally Posted by redsox11

If you type in the camera's IP address in a web-browser does the camera show up? If so, you can just use that page to view the camera instead of the dashboard. We couldn't get our camera to show up on the dashboard either so we just used chrome to view the camera.

Yes, the camera does pop up. If we can't figure out how to get it in the dashboard later on we will definitely use Chrome for it. Thanks.

[J. Stofflett]

Anyone find a fix to get camera to work on Dashboard

[mikets]

I have the same problem. I can't make the Axis camera stream show up on the LabView dashboard as well as the Java SmartDashboard.

On the LabView dashboard, I selected IP camera and clicked the little play button. A strip showed up on the left side showing me a play/pause button, a "select log file" drop down and a magnifying dropdown (1x) etc but there is hardly any height to the strip. On the right side, it does show a fluctuation frame rate. So it seems it is getting the stream but it is not displaying it. Or may be it is displaying it but I don't have any real estate in the thin strip to see it.

On the SmartDashboard, it simply say "NO CONNECTION". I already right clicked on the "Simple Camera" widget and click property to make sure the IP address of the camera is correct.

BTW, we are also setting up a second USB camera and it doesn't show up in the LabView dashboard and the SmartDashboard as well. On the LabView dashboard, do I select USB HW camera or SW camera? What's the difference between the two. In any case, neither of those choices worked.

On the SmartDashboard, the USB camera widget complained "Connected refused".

Does anybody get their cameras to work at all?

[Greg McKaskle]

The three buttons on the dashboard are for recording, stopping, and playing back recorded match info including video. You do not need to use them to get the camera to display. You will need to select between the different camera options which are...

Camera Off -- no request is made to the server on the roboRIO or directly to a camera

USB Camera SW -- the USB camera is configured to return uncompressed images which are then compressed by the roboRIO for transmission. This allows for full control over compression and bandwidth usage, but requires the roboRIO CPU to do the compression of the stream, and it may not achieve the framerate.

USB Camera HW -- the USB camera is configured to return compressed images and these are directly sent back to the DB. Smaller load on CPU, typically higher framerate, but no control over compression value.

IP Camera -- the request goes directly to the camera. No roboRIO involvement at all.

There are a few common reasons why the camera will not show up on the dashboard. For IP cameras, the most common issues are that the camera has not been configured with the FRC/FRC account or the DNS name has not been set. Alternatively, you can use the IP address on a custom dashboard.

For USB cameras, the connection must go to the roboRIO, and for that, the DB must know the IP address. I would suggest installing the update that was pushed last week. We would sometimes see that the TCP connection between the DB and DS would fail. Without this, the default DB will not know how to contact the robot. Also, the ini files for the DB were updated to force socket reuse without the sixty second timeout. Both of these should make the camera connection more reliable.

If the update doesn't make it more reliable, I'd suggest building the DB from source and debugging its diagram. The bottom of loop 1 receives and updates the IP addresses of the robot and camera from the DS. A probe of that wire will tell you whether the DB has enough information to start.

Greg McKaskle

[Greg McKaskle]

A small update.

I downloaded the latest update and tested both camera types. They worked as expected.

If you are using an IP camera, be sure totether to the roboRIO using ethernet or wifi. The USB cable will not allow you to connect directly to the IP camera bridging via the roboRIO.

Greg McKaskle

[J. Stofflett]

Got it working it was the firewall

[Mark McLeod]

I ran into an odd case today where the Dashboard was actually getting an incorrect IP address for the axis camera. The IP address was valid, but for the roboRIO rather than axis-camera.

I wasn't able to take time to track it down, this being the next to last day of build and all (and it was a team I was visiting), but just gave the camera a static IP address of .11 as a workaround and hardcoded it into the Dashboard.

[mikets]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

There are a few common reasons why the camera will not show up on the dashboard. For IP cameras, the most common issues are that the camera has not been configured with the FRC/FRC account or the DNS name has not been set. Alternatively, you can use the IP address on a custom dashboard.

For USB cameras, the connection must go to the roboRIO, and for that, the DB must know the IP address. I would suggest installing the update that was pushed last week. We would sometimes see that the TCP connection between the DB and DS would fail. Without this, the default DB will not know how to contact the robot. Also, the ini files for the DB were updated to force socket reuse without the sixty second timeout. Both of these should make the camera connection more reliable.

If the update doesn't make it more reliable, I'd suggest building the DB from source and debugging its diagram. The bottom of loop 1 receives and updates the IP addresses of the robot and camera from the DS. A probe of that wire will tell you whether the DB has enough information to start.

Greg McKaskle

Thanks for the info. Our IP camera does have the account/password set to FRC/FRC. In fact, our code has no problem accessing the stream for vision processing. It is just that the video stream doesn't show up on the SmartDashboard. So how do I change the DNS name of the camera? Was it on the http://10.4.92.11 setup page? I can't seem to find anywhere to allow me to set "DNS name". What do you mean by using IP address on "custom dashboard". We use the standard Java Smartdashboard and the Simple Camera widget said the IP address is 10.4.92.11.
Regarding the latest update, are you referring to the FRC 2015 update? I looked for it on ni.com and only found one dated November (http://www.ni.com/download/labview-f...-15.0/5088/en/) and one dated December (http://www.ni.com/download/first-rob...2015/5112/en/). It doesn't seem to be the latest. Would you give me a link to it?
For USB camera, how do you tell DB what the camera IP is?

[Greg McKaskle]

Yes, the DNS settings are accessible through the camera web page. I think there are multiple ways of doing it, and it vary based on the model of the camera. I have typically taken the name from auto to manual, entered in axis-camera, and switched it back to auto and saved. I have seen Mark lead people to the Bonjour settings. To test this, use a web browser or command line to test that "axis-camera.local" works in the same way as the IP address would. So you can ping from the command line, or enter the name into the URL of the browser and it works the same.

The update is at ...
http://www.ni.com/download/first-rob...-2015/5112/en/

As for the custom DB comment. I was not paying attention and was thinking that you were using the default DB. For that, you have the source and building a custom DB gives you the opportunity to probe and debug a bit. Though the code gets deep fast.

My guess for the SmartDashboard is that you add a camera display widget and edit its properties. I'm not sure if you enter cam0 for the address or the robot's IP where the server will be running. You may want to check back with screen steps later and see if it has more explicit documentation.

Greg McKaskle