Thanks to a collaboration with Emergent Vision Technologies, the Holoscan SDK now supports EVT high-speed cameras.
The addition of an EVT camera to the Holoscan Developer Kits is optional. The Holoscan SDK has an application that can be run with the EVT camera, but there are other applications that can be run without EVT camera.
The EVT cameras can be connected to Holoscan Developer Kits though Mellanox ConnectX SmartNIC, with the most simple connection method being a single cable between a camera and the devkit. For 25 GigE cameras that use the SFP28 interface, this can be achieved by using SFP28 cable with QSFP28 to SFP28 adaptor.
The Holoscan SDK application has been tested using a SFP28 copper cable of 2M or less. Longer copper cables or optical cables and optical modules can be used but these have not been tested as a part of this development.
Refer to the Clara AGX Developer Kit User Guide or the NVIDIA IGX Orin Developer Kit User Guide for the location of the QSFP28 connector on the device.
For EVT camera setup, refer to Hardware Installation in EVT Camera User’s Manual. Users need to log in to find be able to download Camera User’s Manual.
The EVT cameras require the user to buy the lens. Based on the application of camera, the lens can be bought from online store.
The Emergent SDK needs to be installed in order to compile and run the Clara
Holoscan applications with EVT camera. The latest tested version of the Emergent SDK is eSDK 2.36.02 Linux Ubuntu 20.04.04 Kernel 5.10.65 JP 5.0 HP
and can be downloaded from here.
The Emergent SDK comes with headers, libraries and examples. To install the SDK
refer to the Software Installation section of EVT Camera User’s Manual. Users need to log in to find be
able to download Camera User’s Manual.
The Emergent SDK depends on Rivermax SDK v1.11.11 and Mellanox OFED Network Drivers v5.7 which needs to be installed by SDK Manager.
To avoid installing Rivermax SDK and Mellanox OFED Network Drivers as part of Emergent SDK, use following command.
sudo ./install_eSdk.sh no_mellanox
After installation of the software, execute the steps below to bring up the camera node on the Holoscan devkits in dGPU mode.
Restart
openibdto configure Mellanox device, if not already.
sudo /etc/init.d/openibd restart
Find out the logical name of the ethernet interface being used to connect EVT camera to Mellanox CX NIC using below command.
sudo ibdev2netdev -v
An example of what output would look like is:
0007:03:00.0 mlx5_0 (MT4125 - MCX623106AN-CDAT) ConnectX-6 Dx EN adapter card, 100GbE, Dual-port QSFP56, PCIe 4.0 x16, No Crypto fw 22.33.1048 port 1 (ACTIVE) ==> eth1 (Up)
0007:03:00.1 mlx5_1 (MT4125 - MCX623106AN-CDAT) ConnectX-6 Dx EN adapter card, 100GbE, Dual-port QSFP56, PCIe 4.0 x16, No Crypto fw 22.33.1048 port 1 (DOWN ) ==> eth2 (Down)
In above example, the camera is connected to ACTIVE port eth1.
The logical name of the ethernet interface can be anything and does not need to be
eth1as in above example.if above command does not yield anything, do following and try again:
sudo /etc/init.d/openibd restart
Configure the NIC with IP address, if not already during the Installing EVT hardware step. The following command uses the logical name of the ethernet interface found in step 2.
sudo ifconfig eth1 down
sudo ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.100 mtu 9000
sudo ifconfig eth1 up
To test if the EVT camera and SDK was installed correctly, run the eCapture
application with sudo privileges. First, ensure that a valid Rivermax license
file is under /opt/mellanox/rivermax/rivermax.lic, then follow the instructions
under the eCapture section of EVT Camera User’s Manual.
Problem: The application fails to find the EVT camera.
Solution:
Make sure that the MLNX ConnectX SmartNIC is configured with the correct IP address. Follow section Post EVT Software Installation Steps
Problem: The application fails to open the EVT camera.
Solutions:
Make sure that the application was run with
sudoprivileges.Make sure a valid Rivermax license file is located at
/opt/mellanox/rivermax/rivermax.lic.
Problem: Fail to find
eCaptureapplication in the home window.
Solution:
Open the terminal and find it under
/opt/EVT/eCapture. The applications needs to be run withsudoprivileges.
Problem: The
eCaptureapplication fails to connect to the EVT camera with error message “GVCP ack error”.
Solutions: -It could be an issue with the HR12 power connection to the camera. Disconnect the HR12 power connector from the camera and try reconnecting it.
Problem: The IP address of the Emergent camera is reset even after setting up with the above steps.
Solutions: -Check whether the NIC settings in Ubuntu is set to “Connect automatically”. Go to Settings->Network->NIC for the Camera and then unselect “Connect automatically” and in the IPv6 tab, select Disable.