Help with Axis Cameras

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by EmileH

The USB cameras are a bit finicky, if your team uses the SmartDashboard (Java/C++) to view robot data and such, you will need to add a patched camera widget to the dashboard in order to view the camera feed if you are using the Simple Vision example code. The problem with using the stock camera viewer and the Simple Vision code is that the CameraServer (used in Simple Vision) does not send the mJPEG data with Huffman tables and causes an error on the Driver Station, preventing you from seeing your video feed. One way to solve this would be to use the Intermediate Vision example class, however it takes a lot of the RoboRIO CPU to decode and then re-encode the video for viewing on the dashboard, but adds the Huffman tables in the process. If you want to save your RoboRIO some CPU load, and insert the Huffman tables in on the DS computer, use this camera widget.
So you can use the USB camera with the Simple Vision example class (which uses the WPILib CameraServer) and view the image on the DS with the patched widget.

There's a really well-written guide on setting up an Axis Camera here: https://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s...an-axis-camera

I would argue that if this your first year on an FRC team and you are the only programmer without a mentor (guessing because you asked CD not them) you should probably stick with LabVIEW for at least your first year. I was in practically the same boat as you with a little more experience and I can tell you nothing goes smoothly the first year. Even simple tasks like driving become challenging when you have no experience. Your goal for your first year should be to get the robot working, not to do anything fancy with it. I think for beginner robot programmers LabVIEW is much more forgiving of syntax mistakes and easier to do basic things than C++ or Java (even if you have non-robot programming experience in those languages). With that said, if you do choose to use LabVIEW, USB cameras are easier to use and should be fine for your purposes. The code is written into the sample robot project so all you have to do is plug in the camera and click USB camera (either HW or SW) on the sample dashboard. If you choose to use LabVIEW and need any help, PM me and I will be glad to help.