Acquire and View Point Cloud from Basler ToF blaze-101 Camera

This example shows how to acquire and visualize a point cloud from a GenICam™ compliant Basler ToF blaze-101 camera.

Requirements

This example requires the following add-ons:

• Image Acquisition Toolbox™

• Image Acquisition Toolbox Support Package for GenICam™ Interface

Connect to Camera

Create a videoinput object using the gentl adaptor. The example selects the first device and Coord3D_ABC32f pixel format to acquire a 3D point cloud from a Basler ToF blaze-101 camera. You can view all available devices with imaqhwinfo.

hwlist= imaqhwinfo("gentl")

hwlist = struct with fields:
       AdaptorDllName: 'Z:\77\user.examples26a\runnable\matlab\toolbox\imaq\supportpackages\gentl\adaptor\win64\mwgentlimaq.dll'
    AdaptorDllVersion: '26.1 (R2026a)'
          AdaptorName: 'gentl'
            DeviceIDs: {[1]}
           DeviceInfo: [1×1 struct]

hwlist.DeviceInfo

ans = struct with fields:
             DefaultFormat: 'Mono16'
       DeviceFileSupported: 0
                DeviceName: 'blz1'
                  DeviceID: 1
     VideoInputConstructor: 'videoinput('gentl', 1)'
    VideoDeviceConstructor: 'imaq.VideoDevice('gentl', 1)'
          SupportedFormats: {'Confidence16'  'Coord3D_ABC32f'  'Coord3D_C16'  'Mono16'}

vid = videoinput("gentl", 1, "Coord3D_ABC32f")

Summary of Video Input Object Using 'blz1'.

   Acquisition Source(s):  Stream0 is available.

  Acquisition Parameters:  'Stream0' is the current selected source.
                           10 frames per trigger using the selected source.
                           'Coord3D_ABC32f' video data to be logged upon START.
                           Grabbing first of every 1 frame(s).
                           Log data to 'memory' on trigger.

      Trigger Parameters:  1 'immediate' trigger(s) on START.

                  Status:  Waiting for START.
                           0 frames acquired since starting.
                           0 frames available for GETDATA.

Configure Camera

Retrieve the video source object.

src = getselectedsource(vid);

Configure the camera to stream using the Range component to access range maps, and disable all other components.

src.ComponentSelector = "Intensity";
src.ComponentEnable = "False";
src.ComponentSelector = "Confidence";
src.ComponentEnable = "False";
src.ComponentSelector = "Range";
src.ComponentEnable = "True";

Configure the minimum depth of the camera.

src.DepthMin = 0;

Start Preview

preview(vid)

Acquire 20 Point Clouds

Set the FramesPerTrigger property to acquire 20 point clouds.

vid.FramesPerTrigger = 20;

Start acquisition of point cloud data, and wait until all 20 point clouds are acquired.

start(vid)
wait(vid)

Use getdata to retrieve all the acquired point clouds into the MATLAB® workspace.

data = getdata(vid);

The output of getdata is 20 organized point clouds, represented as a 4-D matrix with the following dimensions:

Height-by-Width-by-3-by-Number of acquired frames

size(data)

ans = 1×4

    480    640    3    20

View the Acquired Data with pcplayer

Find the X, Y, and Z axis limits. These form the input arguments for pcplayer.

xLimits = [min(data(:,:,1,:), [], "all") max(data(:,:,1,:), [], "all")]

xLimits = 1×2 single row vector
103 ×

    -1.8105    2.6844

yLimits = [min(data(:,:,2,:), [], "all") max(data(:,:,2,:), [], "all")]

yLimits = 1×2 single row vector
103 ×

    -2.2322    0.9077

zLimits = [min(data(:,:,3,:), [], "all") max(data(:,:,3,:), [], "all")]

zLimits = 1×2 single row vector
103 ×

    0    4.9998

Create a pcplayer object.

player = pcplayer(xLimits, yLimits, zLimits);

Create pointCloud objects from the acquired data, and view all 20 frames in a loop.

for i = 1:20
    ptCloud = pointCloud(data(:,:,:,i));
    if isOpen(player)
        view(player, ptCloud);
    end
end

Display the last pointCloud object created by the loop.

ptCloud

ptCloud = 
  pointCloud with properties:

     Location: [480×640×3 single]
        Count: 307200
      XLimits: [-1.8096e+03 2.6844e+03]
      YLimits: [-2.1540e+03 900.5122]
      ZLimits: [0 4.9998e+03]
        Color: []
       Normal: []
    Intensity: []

Clean Up

delete(vid)
clear vid src