"Enhancement Request" Ability to support External USB Cameras in Vuforia View

[Sandy_Gunner]

Dear All,

Currently, Vuforia View does not support external cameras for iOS devices, such as the iPad Pro. However, iOS has provided support for external webcams since version 17, and other AR software has begun to incorporate this feature. Is the R&D team considering adding external camera support in an upcoming Vuforia View release?

If there is any new information regarding external camera compatibility with Vuforia View, please share it.

The ability to use a webcam alongside the iPad's built-in camera is crucial for our visual inspection tasks, especially in tight spaces where positioning the iPad is challenging.

Best regards,

Sandy

[RolandRaytchev]

Hi @Sandy_Gunner,

• the problem with the camera is that , who has to track the position  of the external camera. Possibly that camera is not directly mounted to the device , and has some shift. Mostly the cameras has not sensors and we need to update the sensors postion at all. How we will setup the sensors for that camera to calculate where to display the augmentation depedning to the current camera view.
• So that is one asplect what possibly will make difficult to use an  external camera , I think. So when the USB camera is mounted fixed  to the device then we can still use the device camera, I do not see a difference.

So far I know , In studio we use always some functionaltiy what is developed in engine. Therefore I checked if some feature are availbile there:

https://developer.vuforia.com/library/platform-support/vuforia-camera-bridge

Seems only for UWP devices - no IOS devices mentioned there. I think windos machine are not considered further as supported for the Windows machine.

I see that in the communty the issue was reported sometime ago External Camera - PTC Community

The requirement for external Camera Usage was reported to PTC R&D team as ticket  VTS-1754

So based on that ticket there is Product Managment ticket  VPM-36 -"Support External USB Camera usage with Vuforia View"  (general to Vuforia View)

and ticket related more the Windows platform /desktop VPM-28 (is older and possibly not relevant any more because not future support) "Support Windows Desktops as a Vuforia Studio device for external camera use cases" -therefore no relevant any more.

But I still added your request from this post to the PM ticket VPM-36 so that your requirement /applicaiton case will be documented in the Product managment ticket. Thanks

 

[Sandy_Gunner]

Hi @RolandRaytchev 

Thank you for including this enhancement request in the PM ticket. I understand the difficulty associated with using an external camera.

Since the built-in iOS camera has a fixed field of view, we want to replace it with an external camera to meet our needs. Sometimes we need to inspect parts from the bottom (placed in a movable open cart), and going below the model with the iPad is difficult. Using an external camera would make this possible.

Please update me on the progress of this ticket.

Thank you.