In this article we will continue our experiments with the StereoPi stereoscopic camera based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. This time, we will create a 360 degree panoramic photo!

If you use ROS when creating robots, then you probably know that it supports utilization of stereo cameras. For example, you can create a depth map of the visible field of view, or make a point cloud. I began to wonder how easy it would be to use our StereoPi, a stereo camera with Raspberry Pi inside, in ROS. Earlier, I’d tested and confirmed that a depth map is easily built using OpenCV; but I had never tried ROS - and so, I decided to conduct this new experiment, and document my process of looking for the solution.

1. Does ROS for Raspberry Pi exist?

My friend showed me some screenshots to clarify what it should look like:

After several days to compile mechanical parts and write some code for video livestream to Oculus Go, our team created a prototype of this 3rd person camera view.

Tests