camera_configuration_files.md

How to develop your own camera configuration file

The camera configuration file defines the available ROS parameters, and how they relate to the corresponding Spinnaker nodes. The Spinnaker API follows the GenICam standard, where each property (e.g. exposure mode, gain, ...) of the camera is represented by a node. Many properties are of integer or floating point type, but some are enumerations ("enum"). Before you modify a configuration file you can explore the Spinnaker Nodes by using the spinview applications that comes with the Spinnaker SDK. Once you know what property you want to expose as a ROS parameter, you add a mapping entry to the yaml configuration file, e.g.:

  - name: image_width
    type: int
    node: ImageFormatControl/Width

With this entry in place, the ROS driver will now accept an integer parameter of name image_width, and whenever image_width changes, it will apply this change to the Spinnaker Node ImageFormatControl/Width.

Enumerations (enum) parameters are slightly trickier than float and integers because their values are restricted to a set of strings. Any other strings will be rejected by the Spinnaker API. Please document the valid enum strings in the configuration file, e.g.:

  - name: line1_linemode  # valid values: "Input", "Output"
    type: enum
    node: DigitalIOControl/LineMode

The hard part is often finding the node name, in the last example "DigitalIOControl/LineMode". It usually follows by removing spaces from the spinview names. If that doesn't work, launch the driver with the dump_node_map parameter set to "True" and look at the output for inspiration.

NOTE: !!!! THE ORDER OF PARAMETER DEFINITION MATTERS !!!!

On node startup, the parameters will be declared and initialized in the order listed in the yaml file. For instance you must list the enum exposure_auto before the float exposure_time because on startup, exposure_auto must first be set to Off before exposure_time can be set, or else the camera refuses to set the exposure time.