Customizing Prophesee plugin and firmware for CX3-based camera

This guide targets customers who purchased an RDK3 to design a custom camera based on the CX3 IC by leveraging Prophesee firmware and plugin.

The main modification that you will need to perform is to assign you own VendorID/ProductID (VID/PID) to the camera. To so so, you will have to update the source code of:

• RDK3 camera Firmware

• Prophesee camera Plugin

Firmware update

1. Open the file Prophesee_firmware_sources/src/Applicative_Firmware/evk3_usb_descriptors.c and modify the VID/PID accordingly:

   

   Note

   If you want to apply further changes in the source, you can refer to the CX3 documentation

2. Modify the metavision_cx3_updater file (available in OpenEB) so that you can use it with your own VID/PID:

   

3. Flash the new image in the camera using metavision_cx3_updater application as explained in this guide

   • If your camera is running the Prophesee firmware (so with a supported VID/PID by Prophesee), you can use the official metavision_cx3_updater. However, note that at the end of the upgrade, the camera will have the new VID/PID you just assigned and will not be recognized anymore by metavision_cx3_updater.

   • If your camera is running a firmware with a VID/PID not initially present in the metavision_cx3_updater list, you should be able to flash the camera after you have applied the modification mentioned in the previous point.

Plugin update

Here, we outline the procedure for creating the new plugin on a Linux OS. The steps should be similar for Windows OS.

1. Fetch the OpenEB source code (version 3.0 minimum, preferably latest version).

2. in the hal_psee_plugins folder of the repository, copy psee_universal.cpp file into my_custom_plugin.cpp:

/hal_psee_plugins
├── lib
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── ...
├── src
│   ├── plugin
│   │   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   │   ├── psee_universal.cpp
│   │   ├── my_custom_plugin.cpp <== new file

3. in my_custom_plugin.cpp, replace those lines:

   // Register the known USB vendor ID, with the subclass used for Treuzell
   tz_cam_discovery->add_usb_id(0x03fd, 0x5832, 0x19);
   tz_cam_discovery->add_usb_id(0x03fd, 0x5832, 0x0);
   tz_cam_discovery->add_usb_id(0x04b4, 0x00f4, 0x19);
   tz_cam_discovery->add_usb_id(0x04b4, 0x00f5, 0x19);
   

   by those lines:

   // Register the known USB vendor ID, with the subclass used for Treuzell
   tz_cam_discovery->add_usb_id(<my_vendor_id>, <my_product_id>, 0x19);
   

4. Modify two CMakeLists.txt files in order to build properly the new created plugin:

   • In the file /hal_psee_plugins/src/plugin/CMakeLists.txt, below the line

     target_sources(hal_plugin_prophesee PRIVATE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/psee_universal.cpp)
     

     add a new target_sources:

     target_sources(my_hal_plugin_name PRIVATE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/my_plugin.cpp)
     

   • In the file /hal_psee_plugins/lib/CMakeLists.txt, add the name of your plugin by changing this:

     set(plugin_list
         hal_plugin_prophesee
     )
     

     into that:

     set(plugin_list
         hal_plugin_prophesee
         my_hal_plugin_name
     )
     

     Then above this block of code:

     if(EXISTS "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/licensing/LICENSE_METAVISION_SDK")
         install(FILES ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/licensing/LICENSE_METAVISION_SDK
            DESTINATION share/metavision/licensing)
     endif()
     

     add the following code:

     set(my_plugin_list my_hal_plugin_name hal_plugin_prophesee)
     foreach(my_plugin ${my_plugin_list})
         foreach(object ${lib_obj_list})
             # Linkage with generic hal plugin object
             target_sources(${my_plugin}
                 PRIVATE
                 $<TARGET_OBJECTS:${object}>
             )
             target_link_libraries(${my_plugin}
                 PRIVATE
                 ${object}
             )
         endforeach()
     endforeach()
     

4. OpenEB includes the metavision_psee_hw_layer library, which provides application developers with access to device-specific implementations. Detailed information can be found on the Hardware Layer Library page.

   If you are designing a custom camera plugin, you should apply one of the following modifications to tailor the library to your needs:

   • Rename the Library: Replace metavision_psee_hw_layer with a custom name, such as metavision_mycompany_hw_layer, to reflect your custom implementation.

   • Remove the Library: Exclude the compilation of this library from the CMake files if it is not required for your application. This library is optional; refer to the Hardware Layer Library page for further explanations.

5. Now you should compile OpenEB by following the OpenEB install guide for Linux.

   Note that at the step requiring to set the udev rules:

   sudo cp <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/hal_psee_plugins/resources/rules/*.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
   sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
   sudo udevadm trigger
   

   You will need to create and add manually your udev rules file (which has your VID).

   To do so you, add a file my_cyusb_file.rules in the folder /hal_psee_plugins/resources/rules:

   /hal_psee_plugins
   ├── resources
   │   ├── rules
   │   │   ├── 88-cyusb.rules
   │   │   ├── 99-cyusb.rules
   │   │   ├── my_cyusb_file.rules <== new file
   

   You can just copy and edit the file 88-cyusb.rules and replace the VID 0x04b4 by your vendor_id (line 3 and 5 of the file).

   Note

   The equivalent step on Windows is the section related to wdi-simple.exe from the OpenEB Windows install guide.

Final steps

After the plugin compilation, you can plug your camera to the PC and check your camera settings with the command metavision_platform_info --system.

To get more detailed logs, you can set the environment variable MV_LOG_LEVEL to TRACE as explain in this FAQ entry.

If everything went well, you should be able to stream with your camera using Metavision Viewer.