Article ID: 000031281 Content Type: Install & Setup Last Reviewed: 07/08/2021

Is there a way to sync/trigger the Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D435 via hardware?

Environment

Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D435 Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D435i Intel® RealSense™ SDK (Software Developer's Kit) 2.0

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Summary

How to set a hardware trigger for Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D435 for both depth and color streams.

Description

I have multiple Intel® RealSense™ cameras and I want to trigger them all at once. Is there a way to sync/trigger the Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D435 via hardware and how? Also I would like to know, if the sync is possible, if it’s a master or slave mode?

Resolution

For multi-camera case, one camera could be initialized as master and the rest configured as slave.

Alternatively, an external signal generator can also be used as the master trigger with all cameras set to slave mode. When applying an external sync pulse, the HW SYNC input requires a 100 microsecond positive pulse at the nominal camera frame rate, 33.33 ms for a 30 Hz frame rate for example. Inputs are high impedance, 1.8 V CMOS (Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) voltage levels

However, it is important to make sure to use a high resolution signal generator needs to exactly match the sensor frame rate. For example, if the sensor is set up as 30 FPS (frames per second), the real frame rate may be 30.015 FPS. You may need to use an oscilloscope to measure the real frame and configure the signal generator to the same frequency. 

For this reason, it may be better to just use one additional camera as master sync signal generator. 

In RealSense Viewer:

  • for the master camera set inter cam sync to '1'
  • for the slaves cameras set inter cam sync to '2'

Tutorial: Intel RealSense D415 Inter-Cam Sync

Insights for color-depth hardware sync for D435 ( this applies as well for D435i) can be found on this GitHub issue.

More information about the multi-camera configurations can be found on this white paper

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