Hi everyone. I’ve been using an Arducam B0267 kit (the one with 4 monochrome OV2981 sensors) on a Raspberry Pi for a few weeks now. I managed to follow the quick start and capture a JPEG, but there are a few things I can’t find info on. First, is there any documentation on using the external trigger on this kit? Second, how is this supposed to connect to a laptop (HDMI, ethernet, serial?) and what software do I use to run the cameras? Also, what commands do I use to get raw data and change exposure and gain? And I ran a driver install command but I’m not sure it was the right one for SKU B0267.
Welcome. On the connection side, the B0267 only works on the Raspberry Pi. You can’t drive it directly from a laptop over HDMI/ethernet/serial, it uses the libcamera stack on the Pi. For the external trigger, that’s not covered by the standard documentation and needs customization through Arducam sales. Which driver install command did you run, and can you post your setup details so we can check?
Sure. The setup is a B0267 kit with 4 monochrome OV2981 sensors, Raspberry Pi, and libcamera. In /boot/config.txt I had dtoverlay=arducam, and I changed it to dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety and rebooted. For the driver I ran:
./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh kernel_driver
I was able to capture an image with libcamera-still even though I got an IPAProxy error during use.
That install command is okay. The form shown in the docs is:
./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh -p kernel_driver
Your capture command should be:
libcamera-still -t 5000 -n -p test.jpg
Can you paste the exact IPAProxy error text? I’d like to see what it says.
Here it is:
ERROR IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:140 Configuration file ‘arducam-pivariety_mono.json’ not found for IPA module ‘rpi/vc4’
The camera still captures, but I want to make sure this isn’t hurting anything.
That one is benign. It’s complaining that the mono IPA config file ‘arducam-pivariety_mono.json’ isn’t present, but it has no effect on normal usage, so you can safely ignore it. As long as you changed dtoverlay=arducam to dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in /boot/config.txt and rebooted, that’s the correct overlay for this setup.
Okay, that’s good to know. I’m still stuck on the other two though: the external trigger documentation, and the commands for raw capture, exposure and gain.
For raw capture, exposure, and gain, use the libcamera apps and check the Raspberry Pi camera software manual: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/camera_software.html. For driver install and Pivariety multi-camera access, see the Arducam quick start: Quick Start Guide for Arducam CamArray HAT Kit - Arducam Wiki. For the external trigger, the B0267 doesn’t have standard documentation for it. That requires customization, so you’ll need to contact [email protected].
Just to wrap up the current workaround: the B0267 is Raspberry Pi only (not laptop via HDMI/ethernet/serial) and works with the libcamera stack. Keep the overlay as dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in /boot/config.txt and reboot. Driver install is ./install_pivariety_pkgs.sh -p kernel_driver (your version without -p also worked), and capture with libcamera-still -t 5000 -n -p test.jpg. The IPAProxy ‘arducam-pivariety_mono.json’ error can be ignored. For raw/exposure/gain, use the libcamera manual. External trigger needs Arducam sales customization.