6 cameras

[fern]

Hi Everyone,

Just started using Bonsai and was wondering whether I could get some advice on using cameras with 6 behavioural chambers.

I found this link

http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/6903/

for connecting 6 cameras to 6 chambers with two USB outputs. Has anyone tried this before or has any tips on how to set this up in bonsai? I am using playstation ps3 eye cameras and med associates mouse chambers.

Thanks a bunch,

Anushka 

[goncaloclopes]

Hi fern,

I've never tried connecting 6 webcams to only two usb ports. My general experience is you can have 2 cameras per USB hub, but maybe the CLEye driver does something different?

What happens when you try it? Did you try plugging the cameras on computers with multiple USB hubs (i.e. both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 in the front and back part of the computer.

Best,

[Nikolas Karalis]

Hi Anishka,
ps3 cameras transmit raw (non-compressed) data, which necessitates almost all the bandwidth of usb2.0 bus (at 30fps).
So I think it would be impossible to have more than one camera on one port.

You can find some more info here: https://codelaboratories.com/research/view/ps3eye-not-your-typical-webcam

These cameras are nice for some stuff, but the fact that they don't have on-chip compression causes the above problems.
For that reason, I prefer to use cameras with compression. This allows high resolution at low cpu and bus bandwidth cost.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Nikolas

[fern]

Hi Goncalo,

Thank you for your reply. We plugged in two cameras in two different USB ports and we could only image and capture the video from one camera. We think the driver may be the limiting factor. Do you have any experience with this. Is it possible to run 6 playstation 3 eye cams connected to 6 separate usb ports (if this is needed) and record video from all 6 through bonsai? We have already bought the cameras :O.

Anushka

[fern]

Hi Nikolas,

Thanks for your response! We shall make sure we have one camera for one port. We unfortunately have already bought 6 of these cameras having been advised they would be suitable videoing mouse behaviour so we are hoping they will work. We are just struggling to get capture videos from all 6 using the driver and bonsai. Any advice is appreciated.

Best wishes,

Anushka

[goncaloclopes]

Hi Anushka,

Actually, from your description I'm starting to suspect it may be another reason. Which driver version are you using for the PSEye cameras? Is it the latest driver from CodeLaboratories website? Did you download the PS3 Eye Multicam Driver or the PS3 Eye Multicam SDK? I'm asking this because presumably only the SDK installation supports 2 or more cameras.

It may be that you are using a version of the driver that does not support multicam, which in this case would explain this behavior. Usually two cameras on two different ports should have no problems.

[fern]

Hi Goncalo,

I think you are right I downloaded the CL eye driver from the link you sent me.

https://codelaboratories.com/products/eye/driver/

I think I might have to buy a multipack from the CL website. Do you think the CL eye platform pack for 8 cameras would work with bonsai to produce videos for all 6 cameras on 6 separate USB outputs? See link below.

https://codelaboratories.com/products/eye/packs/

Thank you for your help,

Anushka

[goncaloclopes]

Interesting, it looks that now they actually force you to pay for the multicam driver:

https://codelaboratories.com/downloads/

You want the SDK version that can do 2+ cameras. At least it's not that expensive. It should work up to 12, as they say.

If you do try it, let me know if it works.

[fern]

Hi Goncalo,

I downloaded CL PS3 Eye SDK package.

I can see the video from one camera plugged in the back and just a blank screen from the camera connected to the front. I just closed down bonsai and restarted it and now I can see vision from the camera connected to the front usb port but not the back usb port.

Do you have any ideas of what I can do to visualise both?

I have attached a screen shot of my workflow but I am basically intending to have the same camera capture-grayscale-videowriter sequence for each camera and just change the index for camera capture i.e. camera 1 = index 0., camera 2 = index 1.

Anushka

[fern]

The issue could be with code laboraties as maybe I need to add a platform pack like the one for 8 cameras?

https://codelaboratories.com/products

Many thanks for your time and help,

Anushka

[goncaloclopes]

Hi Anushka,

Did you try with the CLEyeMulticam package? Maybe it will integrate better with their driver installation.

Best, 

[fern]

No I did not but  I can buy this too and try now.

Thanks,

Anushka

[goncaloclopes]

I mean the Bonsai.CLEyeMulticam package, not the code laboratories SDK (which you already downloaded and installed).

When running the Bonsai package should access the installed driver and support multiple cameras.

You should use the CLEyeSource node.

[fern]

Thanks Goncalo, I will buy the CLEyeMulticam package for 8 cameras (octa package) and let you know how it goes.

Is the CLEyeSource node something that I will be able to access after installing the multicam package?

Thanks,

Anushka

[fern]

Thanks Gonzalo all sorted.

[Ana Carolina Bottura de Barros]

Hi Goncalo, is this package available? Where?

[Gonçalo Lopes]

Hi Ana,

If you install the CLEye camera driver, any PSEye camera should work with the normal CameraCapture or VideoCapture source:

https://codelaboratories.com/products/eye/driver/

If you want to be able to tweak settings more precisely there is also an older custom bonsai package to interact with the CLEye multicam, but I cannot make it publicly available due to licensing restrictions (the CLEye Driver/SDK is no longer provided for free).

Let us know if simply installing the drivers does not work for you.

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[Adina Buxbaum]

Hi Anushka, 

I was wondering if you got your Med Associates boxes integrated into Bonsai? If so, what method did you use to integrate it?

Thanks,

- Adina