Which product is suitable for depth measurement on the black surface resolution?
Hello.
I am working on a new project to count and measure objects, especially boxes and pallets, sometimes they come wrapped in black nylon. I would like to know about the DXXX series, which one would you recommend? And if I could have any problem detecting objects? The camera would be at a distance of 3 meters.
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Hi Jnapoles Any model in the RealSense 400 Series range except D405 (which is a short-range camera) could meet your needs.
https://www.intelrealsense.com/#Products
It is a general physics principle (not specific to RealSense) that dark grey or black absorbs light and so makes it more difficult for depth cameras to read depth information from such surfaces. The darker the color shade, the more light that is absorbed and so the less depth detail that the camera can obtain. Projecting a strong light source onto such surfaces can help to bring out depth information.
Object detection based around analysis of an RGB color image instead of depth data would not be affected by the black color issue. An object detection solution using RGB that is often used with RealSense cameras is YOLO. The links below are a couple of examples of RealSense-compatible YOLO projects.
https://github.com/Paulraj916/RealSense-Depth-Sensing-Object-Detection-with-YOLOv5
RealSense provide a box measuring example project called box_dimensioner_multicam (it works with a single camera despite the name). However, in its default state it works best at 0.5 meters range and also requires the objects to be placed on top of a checkerboard image. It is possible to modify the project to remove the need for the checkerboard when using a single camera. Whether the issue of the project working best at 0.5 m distance could be addressed through edit of the project code is unknown.
Because of the multiple aspects of the project that need to be accounted for (including object detection and measuring), if you are able to use a pre-existing commercial software solution then object dimensioning software by a company called MobileWorx might meet your needs. It enables objects such as boxes to be measured with a tablet that has a RealSense 400 Series camera attached to its rear, inserted into a rubber boot.
https://www.mobileworxs.com/xdim-mobile-dimensioning-software/
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In regard to counting objects on an RGB image, if you choose to develop your own project then OpenCV (which the RealSense SDK is fully compatible with) could provide that function. Here is an example.
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/detecting-and-counting-objects-with-opencv-b0f59bc1e111
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Hello MartyG, thank you very much for your comments, it has been very helpful to me. According to my requirement, I think I will select the D455, which has good characteristics up to 6m. I was reviewing the links that you shared with me, and I find them very interesting for what I need. I think I'm going to start my first tests.
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