Camera Plugins Installation

Camera plugins are libraries required to use your camera with Metavision SDK. They are distributed by camera makers.

  • For Prophesee EVKs, the plugin is included in the deployment:

    • Metavision SDK users installing from binary packages/installers already have the plugin installed and ready to use.

    • Metavision SDK Pro users or those compiling OpenEB have the code of the plugin included in the repository which will be compiled along with SDK modules. For this plugin to be visible from Metavision SDK, it should be deployed in the system paths or the MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable should be set as explained below in the next section.

    Note

    Since release 4.2 of Metavision SDK, support of all the Prophesee EVKs is handled in a single plugin file (hal_plugin_prophesee). The overall plugin mechanism remains the same, the only difference being that this plugin allows to open multiple devices instead of a single one.

    Warning

    Prophesee camera plugin is coming with a metavision_psee_hw_layer library allowing application developers to access device specific implementation of facilities as explained in the Hardware Layer Library page. This library file should remain in the the folder where the Prophesee plugin is stored and should be moved along with the plugin when the plugin is moved.

  • For Third-party cameras, plugins can be retrieved from suppliers. For those plugins to be visible from Metavision SDK, the MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable should be set as explained below in the next section.

Camera Plugins Search Path

Camera plugins are searched in the following folders listed by order of priority (note that this list can be customized as explained in the next section):

  • the folder list provided by the environment variable MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH (note that folders are separated by ‘:’ under Unix and ‘;’ under Microsoft environment)

  • the system paths in which the plugins were deployed: <install-prefix>/lib/metavision/hal/plugins/ (i.e. /usr/lib/metavision/hal/plugins/ by default on Ubuntu OS)

To specify the location of the plugins, you should customize the MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable:

Linux

export MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH=/path/to/my/plugins/

Windows

set "MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH=C:\path\to\my\plugins\"

If you want to permanently set this environment variable:

  • on Linux, you should include the export in your ~/.bashrc

  • on Windows, right click on your computer in the file browser and select properties. Then, click Advanced system settings in the left hand side bar and click Environment Variables. Finally, add the MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH variable in the System variables section.

Plugins Search Mode

It is possible to customize the paths where plugins are searched by Metavision SDK with the environment variable MV_HAL_PLUGIN_SEARCH_MODE that can take the following values:

  • PLUGIN_PATH_ONLY: consider only paths defined by MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH (the system paths are ignored)

  • SYSTEM_PATHS_ONLY: consider only system paths (paths defined by MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH are ignored)

  • DEFAULT: check both system paths and the ones defined by MV_HAL_PLUGIN_PATH