HOWTO: Connect camera and Issues

This page contains information about how to use the application and what kind of issues the users of Handy 3D Scanner can face during exploitation:

What is it about?

The application is working on a number of operation systems and could use a third-party hardware. Of course we trying to cover all the use cases and platforms with testing - but obviously it's impossible to have all the devices in the world to actually test the application. So this page will help users to determine where the issue is - it's a software or hardware issue etc.

What to expect if everything is going fine?

Ok, let's figure out what you need to do and what you will see:

1. Install the application - use Google Play store or any other way to install the latest version of Handy 3D Scanner
2. Start the Handy 3D Scanner - application should start and you will see Capture tab:
3. Connect camera and phone with a cable (types of cable you can find here). Android platform will notify the application that the new media device is connected and application will ask user to allow the access:
   • Android USB device access request on Samsung S8
   • Android USB device access request on Google Pixel
4. User approving the access by clicking "Ok" button and application initializing the camera and starting the stream:
   • Device started stream using USB 2 protocol (USB-C/USB-C 2.0 cable):
   • Device started stream using USB 3 protocol (USB-C/USB-C 3.1g1 cable):

If you can see something like that - your camera is connected properly.

What kind of issues you can see

Let's go through the steps and check what kind of issues you can find:

1. Install the application - use Google Play store or any other way to install the latest version of Handy 3D Scanner
   • Hopefully you will not face any issues here - but if you will, please contact us and we will help you :)
2. Start the Handy 3D Scanner - application should start and you will see Capture tab
   • Here could be some issues if the phone is not supporting the minimal app requirements:
     • OpenGL ES >= 3.0
     • Android OS >= 5.0
3. Connect camera and phone with a cable (types of cable you can find here)
   • This action item is important. You need to make sure that:
     • You using a good cable, refer to the link to find the right cable
     • Your phone is supporting OTG
   • If you can't see any notification about the connected device or "No camera connected" field is not changing to the USB version:
     • Check with Intel RS Camera - if it doesn't recognize your phone than it's defensively issue with the OS part, camera or the cable.
     • Check your camera - it should easily connect to the desktop as an usb device using standard USB/USB-C cable
     • Try to rotate the USB-C connector on both sides of cable - recently I found that some positions are not working properly. Yeah I know it should work in both ways - but I realized that it's not correct sometimes...
     • Check your cable (and adapter) - it should be good. It's better to buy well-known cables with USB version that your phone is supported. Try another cable or contact the cable manufacturer support.
     • Check the phone - it is supporting OTG? USB host is ok? And so on.
     • Reboot your phone - sometimes USB stack is failing and making connecting any USB device impossible.
     • Android 10 - contains a nasty bug with notification of the software about the connected cameras: #68 - the workarounds are described there, but the better way to get avoid Android 10.
   • We are working on implementation of the bug handler #38, when the application will monitor the system and allow to send email to Handy 3D Scanner support team with the details about the failure.
4. User approving the access by clicking "Ok" button and application initializing the camera and starting the stream
   • USB protocol version is changed, but another request about the USB device access is popped up
     • It could be an issue with power your phone providing to the camera. D400 cameras are quite hungry for power and need ~700mA (5V). If your phone is old or too strictly implementing the USB 2.0 specifications - that mean it will provide ~500mA max. So the camera will be detected, but stream will not be started and camera will restart itself asking for access again and again.
   • USB protocol version is changed, but there is no stream video is available
     • Probably the issue with USB speed - it's to low too allow even minimal fps settings. We will improve the notification system to make sure users can see what's happening: #39.
   • Stream video are slow. USB 3 could provide 30 fps on max settings, USB 2 only 6 fps. If fps is lower than that #40
     • Maybe CPU of your device is slow - try to lower the depth filtering settings (disable filters in Camera.Streams.Depth)
     • Sometimes USB just can't allow more than one stream at a time (USB 2.0 for example), so disabling of the color stream in Camera.Streams could help here.

Camera hardware issues

I saw just one camera issue when I tried to use D435 camera that was connected to a smartphone and at the same time charging the phone using the Qi (wireless) charger: I was not able to detect the camera anymore (neither on smartphone or desktop) - it's not showing up as a connected usb device.

Anything else should be related to firmware or software issue: just use the recommended (usually latest) firmware from the official Intel RealSense support page for your camera: for example fw version 5.11.1.100.

When you found the issue

You can create a ticket here on github or contact the support team using email in Google Play store or on state-of-the-art.io site.