[Dprglist] RealSense T265

[Murray Altheim]

Howdy,

The fact that it's a camera with an IMU and has been designed to incorporate
odometric data, is programmable in Python or C/C++, and works on Ubuntu
(which I'm assuming means is compatible with other Debian distributions of
Linux like Raspberry Pi OS), would suggest that supplying this camera with
the data from one's motor encoders and some kind of obstacle avoidance (IR/
bumpers), one would have most of a robot's sensors.

And sells for US$200.

Is that basically true? If so, that's pretty compelling.

In theory the robot might not need the obstacle avoidance, but that would
seem to be putting way too much onto the camera (i.e., now it needs to be
able to recognise rocking chairs, shoes, banana peels, etc.).

As for drifting in modern houses, I've been drifting in a very non-modern
house for about ten years, so the robot would feel right at home. Believe
me, we have plenty of junk everywhere for the robot to look at. It won't
get lost. But try to find the car keys or the hot water bottle and it
will fail, just like we do.

[I'm almost a bit sad that I just yesterday put in a very expensive order
from ServoCity (US$120 for shipping!) for 1/6th of the parts for a triple-
bogie Mars rover -- as an experiment. It'd probably have been a much safer
investment buying this camera...]

Cheers,

Murray

On 10/04/21 7:52 am, Karim Virani via DPRGlist wrote:
> It seems to work pretty well in a complex environment. the team decided 
> not to use it because it drifts in environments where there are mostly
> large planar surfaces - just not enough detail. examples include modern
> homes with spare furnishings, gymnasiums. so i can't say we have extensive
> experience with it. we haven't tried it outside either, though we've
> played with the companion d345 which works well as an outdoor obstacle
> avoidance sensor.
> 
> the main example they advertise is basically a turtlebot with both
> cameras working together. we haven't tried that configuration.
> 
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 12:00 PM David Anderson via DPRGlist 
> <dprglist at lists.dprg.org <mailto:dprglist at lists.dprg.org>> wrote:
> 
>   Depth-sense Camera + IMU with built-in pose and SLAM.
>   https://www.intelrealsense.com/tracking-camera-t265/
>   https://dev.intelrealsense.com/docs/code-sample
> 
>   Pretty cool way to do odometery-like measurements if it works. Anybody
>   have any opinions and/or experience with this device?
> 
>   thanks,
>   dpa
...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray18 at altheim dot com>                       = =  ===
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     ===  ===
                                                                    = =  ===
     In the evening
     The rice leaves in the garden
     Rustle in the autumn wind
     That blows through my reed hut.
            -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu