Photoneo PhoXi with Matrox Design Assistant

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Contents
Photoneo PhoXi with Matrox Design Assistant ............................................................................................ 1
Installing the Phoxi Control app ................................................................................................................ 1
Running the Phoxi Control app ................................................................................................................. 2
Creating the Design Assistant Project ....................................................................................................... 2
Connecting to the PhoXi ....................................................................................................................... 2
Configuring the Camera step ................................................................................................................ 3
Setting Remap parameters ................................................................................................................... 3
Setting Fill Gap parameters................................................................................................................... 5
Using QuickComm ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Using RobotSpace Coordinates ................................................................................................................. 6
Limitations ................................................................................................................................................ 6

Photoneo PhoXi with Matrox Design Assistant

This document will guide you through setting up to capture depth map images from your Photoneo
Phoxi into Matrox Design Assistant.

Design Assistant software triggers are supported, so the PhoXi can be triggered from the PLC using
QuickComm, or via a button in the interface, or a Trigger flowchart step.

Installing the Phoxi Control app

 The PhoXi Control app must be installed and running on the target runtime platform. Design
Assistant currently supports v1.2.14 which can be found at https://www.photoneo.com/3d-
scanning-software/
 Note that Control App v1.2.14 is compatible with device firmware versions v1.1.62 and later
 In PhoXi Control setup, both API and Driver components must be installed
 The PC must be rebooted after the installation of the PhoXi Control app

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Running the Phoxi Control app

 The PhoXi Control app starts automatically when Windows starts. Its shortcut can be found in the
system tray:

 Control app can only be run as an administrator.

 There is no setting in the app itself to enable/disable startup. PhoXi Control's 3D viewer can be
disabled by creating the environment variable "Phoxi3DViewer" and setting it to "OFF".
 Before creating a project in Design Assistant, tune the Photoneo PhoXi's settings in the PhoXi
Control app.
o In the Network Discovery page, take note of the serial number/ID or the IP address of the
device, you will need them in the Design Assistant project
o Set up your camera respecting the scanning zones described in the datasheet for your PhoXi
model.
o Verify that the output images are as expected (and the confidence map is white for the
objects you are interested in)
o Optionally use the Photoneo Marker Pattern to calibrate the image as described in the
Appendix of the PhoXi Control User Manual.
o You may find the hints in the following article useful:
http://wiki.photoneo.com/index.php/Scanning_best_practices

Creating the Design Assistant Project

Open Design Assistant. Create a new project, and specify the Photoneo PhoXi camera type.

Connecting to the PhoXi

Open the Platform Configuration dialog for PhysicalCamera1. Choose an allocation mode, enter the
appropriate value for that mode and click Allocate. If you choose the Hardware ID and IP Address mode,
you must separate the two values with a semicolon, for example 1801031C3;169.254.9.165.

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Note: If you want to load PhotoNeo proprietary .praw files instead of grabbing live images, the
Allocation Value should be a string like PhoXiTemp(0)(File3Dcamera). The exact string to use can be
seen in the PhoXi Control App when it is loading their proprietary .praw files.

Configuring the Camera step

In the Camera step, verify that the Camera Source input is PhysicalCamera1.

Rerun the Camera step and click on the Send Trigger button in the Wait notification bar.

Setting Remap parameters

If your depth map image shows a range of colors from red to blue over your objects of interest, then the
default mapping is suitable for your scan.

Unfortunately, in the presence of shiny objects and vertical faces some of the reflections of the
scanner’s light go astray, and the PhoXi may interpret them to have the wrong depth.

For example here are several objects on the floor, about a meter away, with the ideal display:
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However, the original grabbed depth map showed mostly a small range of colors:

Looking at the histogram, as expected, most of the data points lie just above the floor – but there are
spurious artifacts that report with depth more than 1.6 meters. These reflection artifacts mean that the
default mapping from min to max data value is not focusing on where the objects are. You can select a
Z-range from the total depth so that the spurious data is excluded. To do so, adjust the right-hand slider
(in the DEPTH MAP REMAP tab) down, in this example around 1050. Alternatively, choose a Start/End
Mode specifying 3 standard deviations either side of the mean.

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Additional details: In this example, if we examine the scene in the PhoXi control app we see the spurious
pixel values “below” the floor.

Setting Fill Gap parameters

Invalid pixels appear gray in Design Assistant depth maps when using a colormap. They appear black in
the PhoXi Control app.

In Design Assistant, you can replace some of the invalid pixel values with depths interpolated from
neighboring pixels.

The Line profile shows the invalid pixel locations in red. You can use the vertical markers on the graph to
measure the width of the gaps and evaluate the Z difference.

Gap filling disabled Gap filling enabled

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In this example, limiting the width of gaps to fill to 20 pixels and the Z difference to 15 we see the edges
around the ruler have been replaced, but the large shadows have not.

Using QuickComm
The trigger can be provided by the PLC directly using the Quick Comm PLCCamera1Trigger bit if you set
the trigger target in the Platform Configuration page for EtherNet/IP or PROFINET.

Using RobotSpace Coordinates

If you calibrate your PhotoNeo PhoXi to work in RobotSpace, the PointCloud received by DA will be in
robot coordinates. In DA X 1905 it was necessary to use the Project3D step to generate a calibrated
depth map, but in DA X 2006 it is done automatically in the Camera step if you select the Point Cloud
Data representation type in platform configuration.

Limitations

 By default, the PhoXi Control app renders a 3D view that requires the GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 graphics
capability. Systems which do not provide this OpenGL capability will show an error when the Control
app connects to the PhoXi. Photoneo provides a batch file that starts the Control app without the 3D
view. It is located in the installation folder under bin\support\PhoXi_Control_No3DGUI.bat. More
details below.

To launch and minimize the Phoxi Control app automatically at boot, without the 3D viewer:

1. Open the startup programs directory, which is located at

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
2. Delete PhoXi Control.
3. In a different window, open the PhoXi Control support directory, which is located at
%PHOXI_CONTROL_PATH%\bin\support
4. Drag PhoXi_Control_No3DGUI.bat with the right mouse button and drop it in the startup
programs directory.
5. A context menu appears. Select Copy here.

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6. In the startup programs directory, right-click on PhoXi_Control_No3DGUI.bat, then select Edit.
This opens Notepad.
7. Add the minimized option at the end of the last command line. It should look like this:

start "%PHOXI_CONTROL_PATH%\bin" PhoXiControl.exe –minimized

8. Save and close Notepad.

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