ZED Depth and Motion Tracking Camera Supports NVIDIA Jetson Nano Board

When NVIDIA launched their low cost Jetson Nano development board earlier this week, one reader asked whether it would support binocular depth mapping. It turns out Stereo Labs has updated the SDK (Software Development Kit) for the ZED depth and motion tracking camera in order to support the latest NVIDIA developer kit.

Jetson Nano can manage depth and positional tracking at 30 fps in PERFORMANCE mode with 720p resolution, and while the more powerful and expensive Jetson TX2 achieves doubles the performance at 60 fps, it does so at a much higher cost.

ZED depth and motion tracking camera specifications:

• Video
  • 2.2K @ 15 fps (4416×1242 resolution)
  • 1080p @ 30 fps (3840×1080 resolution)
  • 720p @ 60 fps (2560×720 resolution)
  • WVGA @ 100 fps (1344×376 resolution)
• Depth
  • Resolution – Same as selected video resolution
  • Range – 0.5 to 20 m
  • Format – 32-bits
  • Stereo Baseline – 120 mm
• Motion
  • 6-axis Pose Accuracy
  • Position – +/- 1mm
  • Orientation – 0.1°
  • Frequency – Up to 100Hz
• Lens
  • Wide-angle all-glass dual lens with reduced distortion
  • Field of View: 90° (H) x 60° (V) x 110° (D) max.
  • ƒ/2.0 aperture
• Sensors
  • Resolution – 4M pixels per sensor with large 2-micron pixels
  • Size – 1/3” backside illumination sensors with high low-light sensitivity
  • Camera Controls –  Adjust Resolution, Frame-rate, Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Gamma and White Balance
  • Sensor Format – Native 16:9 Format for a greater horizontal field of view
  • Shutter Sync – Electronic Synchronized Rolling Shutter
• USB – 1x USB 3.0 port with 1.5m integrated cable
• Power Supply – 5V / 380mA via USB
• Dimensions – 175 x 30 x 33 mm
• Weight – 159 grams
• Temperature Range – 0°C to +45°C

The camera can be mounted to the ZED mini tripod or other mounting system via its 1/4″-20 UNC thread mount. Since Jetson Nano comes with 4 USB 3.0 ports it’s possible to connect multiple ZED camera, but the company recommends to use up to 2 ZED cameras at 720p15 due to the processing power required to capture USB 3.0 at full bandwidth.

To get started, you’ll need to download the latest ZED SDK for Windows 7/10 or Ubuntu 18.04/16.04, and follow the instructions from the documentation.

ZED stereo camera sells directly on Stereo Labs website for $449. Another way to use stereo mapping with Jetson Nano will be to go with NVIDIA Isaac SDK since the company is working on adding it to Jetson Nano, and it will be released on March 28.

Thanks to theguyuk for the tip.

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.

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