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FLIR Flea3 camera as webcam

Posted by kpan 
FLIR Flea3 camera as webcam
July 10, 2020 09:28AM
Hi,

I'm trying to record video during a task using the FLIR Flea3 USB3 camera, and it doesn't seem to show up as a webcam in MonkeyLogic. I have tried on MonkeyLogic versions 174 and 217. Do you know if this camera is able to be recognized as a webcam?

I am able to record from this camera by using MATLAB's Image Acquisition toolbox to start and stop the camera in the timing file for each trial. However, this seems to cause long delays at the end of each trial to save the data, and I haven't been able to save data to the disk continuously while the scene is running. I was hoping that using the camera as a webcam would help circumvent this.

Thank you!
Re: FLIR Flea3 camera as webcam
July 11, 2020 08:52AM
Your camera does not seem to fall into the "webcam" category. It has a way high spec and price for a webcam and, more importantly, the manufacturer's SDK should be used to control it, instead of Microsoft's common API.

Some manufacturers provide a driver so that their cameras can be controlled via webcam APIs, but I guess it is not the case for your camera. As a solo programmer, I just can't support all the proprietary cameras out there in the market, so you should stick to the Image Acquisition toolbox.

The delay is due to the huge size of recorded videos. You just have to use a much smaller video size and frame rate. In the system I have, 320 x 240 is a practical limit when filming at 30 Hz. You may need dedicated hardware to go beyond that spec.
Re: FLIR Flea3 camera as webcam
July 11, 2020 02:58PM
That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation!

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.