Dashboard Camera not working

[vala]

When we are trying to enable the camera nothing shows but we do get fps and data speed.

[Hitchhiker 42]

I vaguely remember having this problem earlier. Did you plug in the USB camera after turning the robot on? In that case, cycle power, and it should appear (make sure your dashboard selector is set to the right camera type). That seemed to work. The camera wouldn't send images unless it was plugged in prior to turning the robot on.

If that isn't it, I would suggest taking a look through the Vision VI. Have you modified that at all?

[vala]

Here is the photos of our code. They are photos of our dashboard code
http://imgur.com/a/ImMMg

[bbsoccergamer]

There were no modifications done to Vision.vi. The above code (overlay.vi) was the modification done to dashboard. (same as we did last year though, and had no issues)

[Alan Anderson]

When you ran the FRC Update to bring your Driver Station up to the latest version, did you perhaps fail to reactivate your NI Vision Run-Time installation? You won't get any camera images on the Dashboard until you do that. Run the NI License Manager and find anything with an exclamation point, then right-click on it and choose Activate.

[bbsoccergamer]

We did run the midseason update, and succefully had to re-license vision software in order to run the code for vision.

[bbsoccergamer]

Bump. (is this a thing on CD like it is/(was?) on other forums?)

[Jonathan L.]

Have you changed anything at all in the Vision VI in the robot code? There is code there that forwards the USB camera images to the dashboard. It has to be running even with the "USB Camera HW" option.

[vala]

We have not changed anything with the vision code. All that we changed is on that link above.

[Greg McKaskle]

A bump is not nearly as well received as more info to help with debugging.

I'll list off some things to explain what I'd if I were in your pit at the next event.

Boot the robot and connect to the DS computer using the USB cable. Launch the DS and DB. On the DB choose USB HW. Make sure the DS has comms with the robot.

I'd expect the camera indicator on the DB to turn green and the usage numbers to be fluctuating. I'd expect some LED on the camera to light up and probably stay on.

If you don't have a display, but seem to have data coming from the robot to the computer, I'd check the license on that laptop by going to the NI License manager and looking at both the Vision Acquisition and Vision Development Modules. Open the twists and click on each element under these. If any say that they are not activated or need something, I'd focus on that. If you have difficulties getting the license activated, feel free to call the support number during their hours.

I might also open the diagram of the DB, go to the vision loop, and dig into the code a bit. The code within WPILib doesn't always have lots of comments, and it doesn't always have debugging turned on. So again, this may be better to do while on the phone with support.

By the way, it may also be useful to connect your camera directly to your laptop and verify that the camera still works. Robots sometimes snack on cords, connectors sometimes get broken, etc.


Greg McKaskle

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

By the way, it may also be useful to connect your camera directly to your laptop and verify that the camera still works. Robots sometimes snack on cords, connectors sometimes get broken, etc.

Though I'm not on the programming team, I can verify that we did do this, and the camera does work (we've actually tried two different cameras, both work on the computer, neither work on the robot).

What's interesting is we actually pulled out a brand new RoboRio and hooked it up by itself to a practice bot (only connected the PDP and a radio though, no motor controllers or sensors), loaded the same code we have on our robot, and the camera worked fine. As soon as we took that same RoboRio and hooked it up to our competition robot however, the camera no longer worked (not even getting any LEDs on the camera to light up).

It's also my understanding that they are getting some data from the camera through the dashboard (usage, framerate, etc.) but no image.

[Greg McKaskle]

Many of the USB cameras seem to turn off their LED and take a nap if nothing opens a session to them. I don't know this behavior well enough to use it as a general debugging diagnostic, but you may be able to compare the LED behavior between the working system and the nonworking system.

For example, if the LED immediately lights up on the working roboRIO and never lights up on the competition robot, there may be a power issue, and it may make sense to ensure that the USB host port still works. If the LEDs turn on, but go off after awhile when no code is running, and that matches the competition bot, that may tell you that the code isn't keeping a session open, and time to break out the debugger.

Also, the roboRIO web page will show you how USB devices are connected, so it should show up on the left list. And Vision Assistant will let you test and configure the USB camera plugged into a roboRIO. When you launch it, choose to acquire images, double click the second camera type which includes USB and IP, then on Target, type in the name or IP of the roboRIO. The list beneath should show the UVC/USB camera, and you can select it and click the play triangle to start getting images from it.

Greg McKaskle