Brand New Intel Realsense R200 3D RealSense depth camera

The R200 actually has 3 cameras providing RGB (color) and stereoscopic IR to produce depth. With the help of a laser projector, the camera does 3D scanning for scene perception and enhanced photography. The inside range is approximately 0.5-3.5 meters and an outside range up to 10 meters. Note: Range is very dependent upon the module and the lighting.

Unlike the Intel? RealSense? F200 camera, the R200 is focused on the world, not the user. As such the RealSense SDK focuses on the following use cases for the R200.

Capture the World in 3D and then edit, share, and print the objects in 3D.
Enhance your Photography. The Intel RealSense R200 includes 3D filters which allow re-lighting, re-focusing, and background segmentation (removal/substitution of the background).
Add virtual content into 3D captures of the physical world. In a feature called Scene Perception, you can add virtual objects into the captured real world scene since the R200 camera understands surfaces as well as objects and motion and can create scenes from estimations of the camera’s position/orientation in the scene.
These use cases are based on two functional areas of the R200 cameras.

Tracking/Localization : Real-time estimation of the Camera??s position and orientation (pose) using depth, RGB and IMU data.
3D Volume/Surface Reconstruction : Building real-time digital representation of the 3D Scene observed by the camera
One of the most exciting things about the R200 camera is the larger scanning capability and it’s new method for measuring depth. The R200 includes stereo cameras as well as the RGB camera. And since the camera is less dependent on IR, it can be used outdoors. The color camera provides the images for humans and the 2 depth cameras provide the data for algorithmic consumption. Additionally if the system has an IMU (inertia measurement unit) built into the system, the SDK can adjust for gravity’s effect on objects added to a scene.

With stereoscopy photography, depth/3D is computed from the disparity (pixel shift) between the 2 ‘separated’ cameras using triangulation to output a depth measurement. Note that this is based from the parallel plane (not the absolute range from the camera). There is a utility included in the SDK to help with plane detection. Making sure the camera sees a horizon during init can be critical to the orientation of the scanning target.

The R200 tracks the camera movement in 3D space with 6 DOF (degrees of freedom). 3 Degrees from the Front/Back/Up/Down/Left/Right and 3 degrees from Yaw/Pitch/Roll movements.

To get the best 3D Scanning results:

Use a 2m (cubed) FOV, with at least 5000 pixels (640×480). For proper detection, use this chart:
Distance / min. Rectangular object size
30cm 4.5cm x 3.5cm,
100cm 16 cm x 11 cm
180cm 28 cm x 21 cm
Don’t occlude more than 20% of an object.
Move the camera but keep the real scene object as stationery as possible
Run at 30 FPS or 60 FPS (see chart below). Use higher FPS to get smaller inter-frame displacement
Don’t use plain, non structured surfaces. The IR projector sends random, non-uniform light pattern to add texture to the scene and runs the data thru the filters in the IR band. Additionally RGB input is added to the stereo depth calculations.
Move the camera at a moderate – slow speed, remember that filming at 60 FPS means 18M depth calculations per second.
Allow the time for the camera to init (shown on the bottom left of the screen) which includes centering the target within the green lines.
The color cam is capable of doing 32 bit RGBA at 1080p @60FPS using fixed focus and a 16:3 aspect ratio.The RGB cam has a slightly larger FOV than the dual cams but is not meant to be used as a standalone camera.
The dual depth cams use a fixed focus 4:3 aspect ratio with a 70x59x46 degree field of view.
The IR is a class 1 laser in the 850nm range,
Available Resolutions
@60FPS, depth at 320×240,, color can be 640×480
@60FPS, depth at 480×360, color can be 320×240 or 640×480
@30FPS, depth at 320×240,, color can be 640×480, 1280×720 or 1920×1080
@30FPS, depth at 480×360, color can be 320×240, 640×480, 1280×720, or 1920×1080

The RealSense SDK provides interfaces to project depth to color and vice versa.