I just received the OAK D W PRO and noticed that when using the IR dot projector, the mono images it produces show the pattern, making it impossible for us to use it for our computer vision algorithms. 

  1. Is there a workaround that will produce both high-quality depth and mono images without the pattern? (only using flood projection is not good enough as the quality of the depth is reduced)

  2. I also ordered the OAK-D Short Range PoE with a ToF camera:

    1. I want to make sure that when using the ToF feature, it doesn't affect the quality of the mono image, and the projected patterns will not be shown in the mono images.

    2. Night Vision - If I used an external IR floodlight, would the camera pick it up and produce images? Does the wavelength matter? If so, what's the recommended wavelength to avoid interference with the ToF sensor?

    DepthZ Is there a workaround that will produce both high-quality depth and mono images without the pattern? (only using flood projection is not good enough as the quality of the depth is reduced)

    Turning off the projector and improving the texture in the scene will do the same thing. Why not just use CV algos on the color image? You can convert it to grayscale using ImageManip node.

    DepthZ I want to make sure that when using the ToF feature, it doesn't affect the quality of the mono image, and the projected patterns will not be shown in the mono images.

    Patterns will not be seen on the mono images.

    DepthZ Night Vision - If I used an external IR floodlight, would the camera pick it up and produce images? Does the wavelength matter? If so, what's the recommended wavelength to avoid interference with the ToF sensor?

    Unfortunately, both the mono bandpass filter and the ToF are sensitive to 940nm. From our tests, it shouldn't be much of a problem, since ToF is slightly delayed as to not interfere, but when using external light, the IR might worsen the depth, just like sunlight does.

    Thanks,
    Jaka

            jakaskerl Why not just use CV algos on the color image? You can convert it to grayscale using ImageManip node.

            I can't use the RGB camera as I have no visible light in the room. I can only use IR light

            jakaskerl Patterns will not be seen on the mono images.

            Does the OAK-D Short Range PoE with a ToF mono cameras even have night vision? As mentioned above, I don't have visible light I can only rely on IR light

                  DepthZ
                  The stereo cameras on the SR POE have bandpass at 940nm so they should percieve light from the floodlight.

                  It's theoretically possible to use floodlight all the time, but flash the dot projector every other frame. This would allow you to run inference on times when the projector is off and run stereo depth when it is on. Keep in mind this reduces the FPS by half in both cases.

                  Thanks,
                  Jaka

                    10 days later

                    Hi @jakaskerl ,

                    I couldn't find it on the docs, and I want to be sure - is there a way to turn the IR dot projector on and off while recording?

                    I want to use the active stereo with the dot projection but also get clean mono images, so I thought I'd take every other image with an IR dot projector and the rest with flood light. This way, I reduce the FPS of both by half but get better-quality mono and depth images.

                    Is this possible?

                    Hi @DepthZ
                    Yes, exactly what I had in mind. It is possible to do so using setIrLaserDotProjectorBrightness(float mA).