C++ (Windows)

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This topic introduces how to configure the Mech-Eye API C++ samples with CMake and then build the samples with Visual Studio on Windows.

Sample List

Samples are divided into 7 categories, Basic, Advanced, Util, Laser, UHP, Calibration, and Halcon.

  • Basic: camera connection and basic capturing functions.

  • Advanced: advanced capturing functions.

  • Util: obtain information from a camera and set camera parameters.

  • Laser: for the Laser, DEEP and LSR series cameras only.

  • UHP: for the UHP series cameras only.

  • Calibration: perform hand-eye calibration through Mech-Eye API.

  • Halcon: obtain HALCON-readable point clouds through Mech-Eye API.

The samples in each category and their descriptions are provided below.

Basic

  • ConnectToCamera: Connects to a camera.

  • ConnectAndCaptureImage: Connects to a camera and obtains the 2D image, depth map and point cloud data.

  • CaptureColorMap: Obtains and saves the 2D image from a camera.

  • CaptureDepthMap: Obtains and saves the depth map from a camera.

  • CapturePointCloud: Obtains and save untextured and textured point clouds generated from images captured with a single exposure time.

  • CaptureHDRPointCloud: Obtains and save untextured and textured point clouds generated from images captured with multiple exposure times.

  • CapturePointCloudROI: Obtains and save untextured and textured point clouds of the objects in the ROI from a camera.

  • CapturePointCloudFromTextureMask: Constructs and saves untextured and textured point clouds generated from a depth map and masked 2D image.

Advanced
Util

  • GetCameraIntri: Gets and prints a camera’s intrinsic parameters.

  • PrintDeviceInfo: Gets and prints a camera’s information such as model, serial number, firmware version and temperatures.

  • SetDepthRange: Sets the range of depth values to be retained by a camera.

  • SetParameters: Sets specified parameters to a camera.

  • SetUserSets: Performs functions related to parameter groups, such as obtaining the names of all available parameter groups, selecting a parameter group, and saving the parameter values to the current parameter group. The parameter group feature allows user to save and quickly apply a set of parameter values.

Laser

  • SetLaserFramePartitionCount: Divides the projector FOV into partitions and project structured light in one partition at a time. The output of the entire FOV is composed from images of all partitions.

  • SetLaserFrameRange: Sets the projection range of the structured light. The entire projector FOV is from 0 to 100.

  • SetLaserFringeCodingMode: Sets the coding mode of the structured light pattern.

  • SetLaserPowerLevel: Sets the output power of the laser projector in percentage of max power. This affects the intensity of the laser light.

UHP

  • SetUHPCaptureMode: Sets the capture mode (capture images with 2D camera 1, with 2D camera 2, or with both 2D cameras and compose the outputs).

  • SetUHPFringeCodingMode: Sets the coding mode of the structured light pattern.

Calibration
Halcon

  • CaptureHalconPointCloud: Obtains point cloud data from a camera, and then transforms and saves the point clouds using HALCON C++ interface.

Prerequisites

In order to use the C++ samples of Mech-Eye API, the following prerequisites must be satisfied:

Obtain the Samples

C++ samples are included in the installation directory of Mech-Eye SDK or can be obtained from GitHub by cloning. The samples in the installation directory are the version at the time of Mech-Eye SDK release. The version on GitHub may contain later changes.

  • The samples in the installation directory are located in xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source.

  • The samples cloned from GitHub are located in xxx/mecheye_cpp_samples/source.

Install Required Software

In order to use the C++ samples of Mech-Eye API, Mech-Eye SDK, CMake and Visual Studio must be installed.

Install the latest version of Mech-Eye SDK

Please install or upgrade according to Mech-Eye SDK Installation Guide.

Install CMake (version 3.2 or above)

  1. Download CMake: download the installer to the right of Windows x64 Installer.

    cmake download

  2. When installing, select the following two options to add CMake to environment variables and create a desktop shortcut for CMake.

    • Add CMake to the system PATH for all users

    • Create Cmake Desktop Icon

cmake 1

Install Visual Studio (version 2017 or above)

  1. Download the Visual Studio installer.

  2. When installing, select the following two workloads in the Desktop & Mobile category, and then click Install.

    • Desktop development with C++

    • Universal Windows Platform development

Please restart your computer after installing Visual Studio. If you still need to install the optional software, you can restart your computer after adding environment variables.

Install Optional Software

Some samples contain functions that depend on the following third-party software libraries. If you need to use the samples listed in the table below, you must install the software on which the samples depend.

  • OpenCV: version 3.4.5 or above

  • PCL: version 1.8.1 or above

  • HALCON: version 20.11 or above

    HALCON versions below 20.11 are not fully tested.
If any of the optional software is not installed, then you must complete the steps in Disable Unneeded Samples (Optional) before configuring the samples.

Refer to the following table for the samples that depend on third-party software libraries.

Sample OpenCV PCL Halcon

CaptureColorMap

√

CaptureDepthMap

√

CapturePointCloud

√

CaptureHDRPointCloud

√

CapturePointCloudROI

√

CapturePointCloudFromTextureMask

√

CaptureCloudFromDepth

√

CaptureTimedAndPeriodically

√

√

CaptureSimultaneouslyMultiCamera

√

√

CaptureSequentiallyMultiCamera

√

√

CaptureHalconPointCloud

√

Install OpenCV

  1. Download and install OpenCV. Note down the installation directory of OpenCV.

  2. Add OpenCV to environment variables. Refer to Add Environment Variables for instructions.

Install PCL

  1. Refer to the following table and determine the version of PCL to install based on the version of Visual Studio.

    Visual Studio version Supported PCL versions

    2017

    1.8.1–1.9.1

    2019

    1.8.1–1.12.1

    2022

    1.8.1 and above

  2. Open the PCL download page, click on Assets under the corresponding version, and download the EXE installer.

  3. Run the installer to install PCL. When installing, select Add PCL to the system PATH for all users to add PCL to environment variables.

    pcl 2

    The following error message might pop up during installation:

    Warning! PATH too long installer unable to modify PATH!

    In this case, you need to add PCL to environment variables manually. Refer to Add Environment Variables for instructions.

  4. Add OpenNI2 on which PCL depends to environment variables. Refer to Add Environment Variables for instructions.

Install HALCON

Install HALCON 20.11 or above. Please confirm that your HALCON license is still valid.

Add Environment Variables

If you need to use samples that depend on OpenCV or PCL, please add the relevant environment variables according to the following steps.

  1. Right-click This PC on the desktop and select Properties.

  2. Click Advanced system settings, and in the pop-up System Properties window, click Environment Variables to open the Environment Variables window.

  3. Double-click Path in the user variables to enter the Edit environment variable page. Click New in the upper-right and add the following directories one by one. Then, click OK to exit the window.

    • For PCL: C:/Program Files/OpenNI2/Tools

    • For OpenCV:

      • xxx/OpenCV/build/x64/vc14/bin

      • xxx/OpenCV/build/x64/vc14/lib

    • If you encountered the error message while installing PCL, please add the following directories as well:

      • xxx/PCL 1.12.1/bin

      • xxx/PCL 1.12.1/3rdParty/VTK/bin

Please restart your computer after adding the environment variables. If not restarted, the environmental variables added to PATH may not be effective.

Build and Run Samples

You can build all samples at once or build a single sample individually.

The paths provided in this section correspond to the samples included in the installation directory. If you are using the samples cloned from GitHub, please modify the paths correspondingly.

Disable Unneeded Samples (Optional)

If you did not install some of the optional software and still want to build all samples at once, then you must complete the steps in this section. Otherwise, an error will occur during the configuration of samples using CMake.

If you do not need the samples that depend on OpenCV, PCL or HALCON, please edit the CMakeLists file to disable these samples before building all samples at once.

  1. Open CMakeLists.txt in xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source.

  2. Edit lines containing options: find the lines starting with options, change ON at the end of the line to OFF to disable the samples that depend on the software mentioned in that line.

    Example: If you do not need to build the sample that depends on HALCON, change ON at the end of the line starting with option(USE_HALCON to OFF.

  3. Save the changes and close CMakeLists.txt.

Configure Samples in CMake

  1. Right-click CMake and select Run as administrator.

  2. Enter the directories of source code and binaries.

    • To build all samples at once, enter the following directories.

      Where is the source code

      xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source

      Where to build the binaries

      xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source/build

    • To build one sample individually, enter the following directories. Replace Category with the category name of the sample and SampleName with the name of the sample.

      Where is the source code

      xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source/Category/SampleName

      Where to build the binaries

      xxx/Mech-Eye SDK-x.x.x/API/samples/c++/source/Category/SampleName/build

  3. Click Configure in the bottom to open the configuration page. Select Visual Studio version, and set the platform to x64. Then, click Finish. When the configuration completes, the log will display Configuring done.

    configuration 1

  4. Click Generate to generate Visual Studio solution. When the generation completes, the log will display Generating done. Then, click Open Project to open the solution in Visual Studio.

Build Samples in Visual Studio

  1. In Visual Studio toolbar, change the solution configuration from Debug to Release.

  2. In the Solution Explorer panel, right-click Solution ‘xxx’ at the top, and select Build Solution. An EXE format executable file is generated for each sample. The executable files are saved to the Release folder, located in the Where to build the binaries directory that you entered in CMake.

Run Samples

You can run the samples in Visual Studio after building them, or run the samples by double-clicking the executable files.

Run a sample in Visual Studio

  1. In the Solution Explorer panel, right-click a sample, and select Set as Startup Project.

  2. Click Local Windows Debugger in the toolbar to run the sample.

    While the sample is running, input the device index of the camera to which you want to connect according to the instruction, and press Enter to connect.

  3. If image and/or point cloud files are saved by the sample, you can find the files in the build folder (the Where to build the binaries directory that you entered in CMake).

Run the executable file of a sample

  1. Navigate to the Where to build the binaries directory that you entered in CMake, and open the Release folder.

  2. Run the EXE file with the same name as the sample.

    While the sample is running, input the device index of the camera to which you want to connect according to the instruction, and press Enter to connect.

  3. If image and/or point cloud files are saved by the sample, you can find the files in the Release folder.

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