Intel RealSense D435i Stereo Depth Camera Supports 6 Degrees of Freedom Tracking

First unveiled in CES 2014, Intel RealSense Technology was introduced for perceptual computing application with hardware such as 3D sensing cameras, as well Nuance Dragon Assistant voice technology.

Since then the company release various 3D sensing camera models and kits such as Realsense R200 Depth Camera robotics development kit, and just announced the new RealSense D435i stereo depth camera which adds 6 DoF (Degrees of Freedom) tracking over D435 model thanks to an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

Intel RealSense Depth Camera D435i key features and specifications:

Intel RealSense Vision Processor D4 – Purpose-built ASIC designed to deliver stereo depth data at up to 90fps at VGA resolutions or up to 1280×720 resolution at 30fps
Intel RealSense module D430 – Depth camera imaging sub-system featuring a wide field of view (91.2 horizontal x 65.5 degrees vertical), global shutter stereo image sensors and an IR projector
Depth Technology – Active IR stereo
Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)
Image Sensor Technology – Global Shutter; 3um x 3um pixel size
Depth Field of View (FOV) – (Horizontal × Vertical) for HD 16:9:
85.2° x 58° (+/- 3°)
Depth Stream Output Resolution – Up to 1280 x 720
Depth Stream Output Frame Rate – Up to 90 fps
Minimum Depth Distance (Min-Z) – 0.11 m
Maximum Range – Approx. 10 meters (Accuracy varies depending on calibration, scene, and lighting condition)
RGB Sensor Resolution & Frame Rate – 1920 x 1080 at 30 fps
RGB Sensor FOV (Horizontal x Vertical) – 69.4° x 42.5° (+/- 3°)
USB (host interface) – USB 3.0 Type-C port
Dimension (Length x Depth x Height) – 90 x 25 x 25 mm
Mounting Mechanism – One 1/4-20 UNC thread mounting point, 2x M3 thread mounting points
Use Environment – Indoor / Outdoor

The IMU combines a variety of linear accelerometers with gyroscopes to detect both rotation and translation for three axes, as well as pitch, yaw and roll. The Intel RealSense D435i is supported by the open source Intel RealSense SDK 2.0, which recently added support for the IMU, and runs on Windows, Linux, and MacOS operating systems.

Potential use case made possible by the IMU include navigation and stabilization for drones, orientation for tracking in fitness and robotics, motion detectors and gesture recognition for gaming and robotics, rotational tracking for augmented reality and virtual reality head-mounted devices, and more.

Intel Realsense D435i camera can be pre-ordered for $199.99 with shipping scheduled for early December 2018. More details may be found on Realsense products page.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.