The SGM®Producer is a software library for running stereo matching processes on the graphics card of an external computer.
The stereo matching component is part of the basic onboard software package on each rc_visard and rc_visard NG can also be used for the rc_viscore. The SGM®Producer is an add-on software element that enables a significant speed-up of the depth image computation. This is done by utilizing the computing power of an external host computer’s graphics card (GPU) for stereo matching. Frame rates of 25Hz can be achieved.
Switching from onboard to offboard stereo matching is easy: All interfaces, application code, Semi-Global Matching (SGM) processing and the achieved results are identical. The key difference is the processing speed. Installation of this GenICam-compatible producer is easy: There is no change of interface as compared to onboard stereo matching, and even SGM® processing for multiple sensors on one GPU is possible.
As an example, on an Nvidia RTX 2070, depth images can be computed with 25 Hz in low, medium and high quality, even from two rc_visards at the same time. Full-quality stereo matching in 1.2 MPixel resolution is possible with 12.5 Hz on this graphics card (as compared to 1 Hz onboard the sensor).
The software library implements the GenICam transport layer interface standard and can be used with all GenICam-compatible applications that support the current GenTL 1.5 standard, e.g. Halcon from MVTec (just replace the GigE Vision producer by Roboception’s library).
| Software interface | rc_visard GenICam API or other compatible application (GenICam GenTL version 1.5 compatible) |
| Required host OS | Windows 10/11 (64 bit), Ubuntu LTS releases (64 bit) and other Linux distributions on x86-64 and ARM CPUs. Other operating systems on request. |
| Required graphics card | Nvidia GPU with computing capability of 3.5 (i.e. Kepler architecture) or higher, with a minimum of 1.5 GB memory per rc_visard. |
| Required interfaces | Gigabit Ethernet network port for rc_visard |
| All rc_visard and rc_viscore customers are able to download and use the SGM®Producer software library free of charge, the sensors serve as a dongle in this case. |
For more detailed information about our products and our software tools for your robot vision solution, please visit our Knowledge Base:
You would like to find out whether our portfolio is suitable for your robotic application? Simply request a feasibility study free of charge, and get a live demo of our products.
Would you like to try out one of our sensors and software solutions? Our Try-&-Buy-option gives you the chance to test our products before you decide, and to be sure you make the right choice for your application.
