Can't find setup guide for Arducam B0263 stereo camera on Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Cameras
1

Hi, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I just picked up a stereo 1MP OV9281 camera module and I’m trying to get it running on a Raspberry Pi. The problem is I can’t find a setup guide for this specific module anywhere. Every documentation page I land on just sends me around in circles and I never actually get to instructions. Has anyone actually gotten one of these working? What software am I supposed to be using?

2

Welcome! Happy to help you get this running. A couple of quick questions so I can point you to the right place:

  1. Which exact model do you have? (There are a few OV9281-based boards and the setup differs between them.)
  2. What have you tried so far on the docs side, and where did you get stuck?

If you can give me the product name/model number and any links you’ve already looked at, I can figure out which guide applies to your board. Also, just a heads up — the documentation site has been undergoing some migration recently, so a few of the older links may not land where they should.

3

Sure. Here are the details:

No code or logs yet because I honestly haven’t gotten far enough to run anything. I’ve been stuck on the docs.

What I tried:

  • Poked around the Arducam website but kept going in circles.
  • Found a B0263 doc page here: Multi-Camera Solution - Arducam Wiki but when I follow the quick start link and select B0263, it just redirects me straight back to the Uctronics purchase page. No instructions at all.
  • Also found the Pivariety Quick-Start Guide here: Quick Start Guide - Arducam Wiki but my sensor isn’t listed in the software section, and it doesn’t look like it’s meant for the stereo systems anyway.

I’m just after something concise: how do I set this specific module up on a Raspberry Pi, and which software/driver should I be installing?

4

Thanks, that’s really helpful — and I’m sorry for the runaround. What you’re hitting is a known problem right now: we’ve been migrating the documentation from the old site to the new one, and during that move some of the links broke or redirect to the wrong place. The B0263 quick start link looping you back to the purchase page is exactly one of those migration artifacts, so it’s not something you’re doing wrong.

Before I send you the corrected link, can you confirm one thing for me: do you need the stereo/multi-camera setup (i.e. using the dual cameras as a stereo pair), or are you mainly trying to get the board detected and streaming first? That determines which part of the guide I should point you to.

5

Mainly just to get it detected and working first, then I’ll worry about the stereo side of it. Honestly at this point I just want to know which driver to install so the Pi actually sees the camera. Whatever the current, correct instructions are for this board — that’s all I need.

6

(Adding a bit more context in case it matters) I also noticed the Pivariety guide’s software section jumps around a lot and the sensor list seems incomplete — my OV9281 stereo board isn’t in there. Is the Pivariety driver even the right thing for a dual-camera board like this, or am I looking at the wrong product family entirely?

7

Good question — yes, the Pivariety driver path is the right one for your board; the confusion is purely a docs-location issue.

The current, correct place to install the Pivariety driver is the Quick-Start Guide, but you need the section anchored at “pivariety-cameras” (not the older “#software” anchor you found, which is the outdated one that’s missing entries during the migration):

https://docs.arducam.com/Raspberry-Pi-Camera/Pivariety-Camera/Quick-Start-Guide/#pivariety-cameras

Start there and follow the Pivariety driver install steps. If the sensor-specific steps still look like they don’t cover the dual OV9281, come back and tell me exactly where it stops matching and I’ll help you fill the gap.

8

That link works — it actually lands on the install steps instead of bouncing me to a store page. That’s the piece I was missing the whole time. I’ll go through the driver install and report back if anything doesn’t match up for the dual OV9281 board. Thanks for the fast help, and yeah, the broken redirect definitely wasn’t me.

9

Great, glad that got you unblocked! Quick recap for anyone finding this thread later:

  • The issue wasn’t the hardware or your setup — the docs site was being migrated from the old site to the new one, which left broken/redirecting links (the B0263 quick start link looping back to the product page) and a missing sensor entry in the software section.
  • The correct, current location to install the Pivariety driver is:
    Quick Start Guide - Arducam Wiki
  • Follow the Pivariety driver install steps from the #pivariety-cameras anchor. The older “#software” anchor is the outdated section that’s missing entries.

If the dual OV9281 stereo steps don’t fully line up once you’re into it, just post back here with where it diverges and we’ll sort it out.