GSCam

This is a ROS package originally developed by the Brown Robotics Lab for broadcasting any GStreamer-based video stream via the standard ROS Camera API. This fork has several fixes incorporated into it to make it broadcast correct sensor_msgs/Image messages with proper frames and timestamps. It also allows for more ROS-like configuration and more control over the GStreamer interface.

Note that this pacakge can be built both in a rosbuild and catkin workspaces.

Features

• Convert YUV to RGB/BGR with low CPU usage (50% on ORIN AGX with 5M Camera, still room for optimization)
• Publish Camera INFO
• Get the timestamp of the camera itself (gst can get V4L2 timestamp, but need to verify)
• Use hardware acceleration
• Support Nodelet
• Support Resize
• Support RTSP Camera

How to use

(Tested on ORIN AGX with Ubuntu20.04)

Dependencies:

• gstreamer1.0-tools
• libgstreamer1.0-dev
• libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev
• libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-dev
• gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
• v4l-utils

Ubuntu Install (≥14.04):

$ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad v4l-utils

Just try to simply show the GMSL camera:

$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device={DEVICE} ! 'video/x-raw,format={FORMAT},width={WIDTH},height={HEIGHT},framerate={FPS}/1' ! videoconvert ! fpsdisplaysink video-sink=xvimagesink sync=false

Or RTSP camera:

$ gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://{user}:{password}@{url} latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! avdec_h264 ! autovideoconvert ! autovideosink sync=false

Example:

# GMSL Camera
$ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw,format=UYVY,width=2880,height=1860,framerate=30/1' ! videoconvert ! fpsdisplaysink video-sink=xvimagesink sync=false

# RTSP Camera
$ gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://admin:loop1234@10.0.0.156:554/Streaming/Channels/101 latency=0 ! rtph264depay ! h264parse ! avdec_h264 ! videoconvert ! fpsdisplaysink video-sink=xvimagesink sync=false

Usage:

1. Compile the package:

   $ catkin build gscam

2. Test nvv4l2camerasrc and nvvidconv (Necessary):

   $ gst-launch-1.0 nvv4l2camerasrc device={DEVICE} ! 'video/x-raw(memory:NVMM),format={FORMAT},width={WIDTH},height={HEIGHT},framerate={FPS}/1' ! nvvidconv ! video/x-raw,format=BGRx ! videoconvert ! fpsdisplaysink video-sink=xvimagesink sync=false

   If the image is distorted, please execute $ v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 --set-ctrl preferred_stride={STRIDE}, The {STRIDE} parameter is calculated according to cell({WIDTH} * 2/256) * 256; For example {WIDTH}=2880, then the calculation process is: cell(2880 * 2/256) * 256 = 23 * 256=5888. More information please see this issue.

3. See GMSL sample launch file and run with:

   $ roslaunch gscam gmsl.launch

Notes:

• Currently testing a 5M Camera on ORIN AGX: it occupies about 46% of the CPU single core when it is unloaded, about 70% of the CPU single core when reading image_raw, and about 150% of the CPU when reading compressed.
• Due to the limited output format supported by nvvidconv, the final conversion to RGB8 and BGR8 still runs on the CPU.

ROS API

gscam

This can be run as both a node and a nodelet.

Nodes

• gscam

Topics

• camera/image_raw
• camera/camera_info

Services

• camera/set_camera_info

Parameters

• ~camera_name: The name of the camera (corrsponding to the camera info)
• ~camera_info_url: A url (file://path/to/file, package://pkg_name/path/to/file) to the camera calibration file.
• ~gscam_config: The GStreamer configuration string.
• ~frame_id: The TF frame ID.
• ~reopen_on_eof: Re-open the stream if it ends (EOF).
• ~sync_sink: Synchronize the app sink (sometimes setting this to false can resolve problems with sub-par framerates).
• ~image_encoding: Encoding of the stream. Can be {rgb8, bgr8, mono8}. Defaults to rgb8. (Verify with: $ rostopic echo /camera/image_raw | grep encoding)

Troubleshooting

WARNING: erroneous pipeline: no element "h264parse": $ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad

Examples

See example launchfiles and configs in the examples directory. Currently there are examples for:

• Video4Linux2: Standard video4linux-based cameras like USB webcams.
  • GST-1.0: Use the roslaunch argument GST10:=True for GStreamer 1.0 variant
• Nodelet: Run a V4L-based camera in a nodelet
• Video File: Any videofile readable by GStreamer
• DeckLink: BlackMagic DeckLink SDI capture cards (note: this requires the gst-plugins-bad plugins)