Night vision feature in DepthAI camera

ramkunchur

Hi...
I am posting a question to ask whether any DepthAI hardware (OAK-1 for example) or other devices support night vision via it's camera ?
Appreciate your feedback.

Thanks & Best Regards.

erik

Hello ramkunchur ,
the cameras that we use have good sensitivity, so even in a bit darker scene, they will be able to pick that up. For the mono/depth, depth map quality will degrade when it's darker. So I would recommend using IR-capable cameras - cameras with no IR filter (eg. this one) and potentially active IR source (eg. LEDs).
Thanks, Erik

ramkunchur

Hi @erik,
Thanks so much for your quick response...
What I understand is we can't use night vision (IR cam) with Luxonis OAK-1 (LUX-1).
The arducam link which you have shared mentions product title as following:
"Arducam 1MP OV9282 Mono global shutter drop-in replacement for DepthAI OAK-D(NoIR)"

My requirement is as follows:
Need depthAI camera and board module with night vision camera

So, in order to achieve above we need following components:

DepthAI LUX-D with Onboard Cameras (USB3C) or DepthAI OAK-D (LUX-D) with Onboard Cameras and Enclosure (USB3C)
Arducam 1MP OV9282
Host board such as Raspberry Pi

So, in order to be able to use night vision camera (Arducam 1MP OV9282), we should have OAK-D (LUX-D) board and a host device with OS.
Is my understanding correct?

Along with this we would also need IR LED as well for full fledged night vision functionality.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Ram

erik

Hello ramkunchur ,
to correct myself on the previous post; those cameras are the mono cameras that are used by the OAK-D (and other cameras that have stereo depth perceptions), and would not work with the OAK1. I apologize for that.

We just talked with the ArduCam which provide these cameras what would be the easiest. They don't have the no-IR filter color camera (IMX378) in the form factor that you could just swap them from the one on the OAK-1. They suggested to use the LUX-FCC and this camera. Apparently it's not a problem to remove the IR filter from the camera mentioned. If you wanted to get the color camera for OAK-1 with no IR filter you should contact them directly, but it will be expensive for just one unit.

TLDR, you could:

Use OAK-D (or for example embedded solution like LUX-ESP32) and switch the cameras with the ones I linked on the previous post. This will only work for the mono cameras (stereo depth), not for the color camera though.
Use LUX-FCC with arducam camera (mentioned above)
OAK-1 and ask ArduCam to make a such no-ir color camera

And since you were mentioning the host, you will need with all cameras except the embedded ones (LUX-ESP32 and OAK-D-WIFI). And yes, you would still need active IR LED lighting.
Thanks, Erik

ramkunchur

Hi erik,

Apologies for delay in posting message.
Thanks so much for detailed information, this is really helpful and gives clear picture.
Appreciate your time and help.

Best Regards,
Ram