D435i how to turn auto exposure ON/OFF on launch?

[rakshith95]

Hello, I'm unable to find a parameter to turn the auto exposure ON/OFF for the D435i cameras. The only way I can do it now is to run rosrun rqt_reconfigure rqt_reconfigure and do it through the GUI, but I wish to do this from a script.

Thank you!

[MartyG-RealSense]

Hi @rakshith95 Are you able to set enable_auto_exposure with rosrun without accessing the GUI by using the commands below in the ROS terminal during runtime, please

OFF rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam set /camera/stereo_module enable_auto_exposure 0

ON rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam set /camera/stereo_module enable_auto_exposure 1

[rakshith95]

This works, thank you! Why isn't this a launch parameter though?

[MartyG-RealSense]

Rosparam code for depth and color auto-exposure enable / disable is below.

OFF

<rosparam>
  /camera/rgb_camera/enable_auto_exposure: false
  /camera/stereo_module/enable_auto_exposure: false
</rosparam>

ON

<rosparam>
  /camera/rgb_camera/enable_auto_exposure: true
  /camera/stereo_module/enable_auto_exposure: true
</rosparam>

[rakshith95]

Thank you! Closing this

[rakshith95]

@MartyG-RealSense setting the parameters doesn't seem to work for me. The auto exposure is the same status irrespective of setting the parameter to true or false

[MartyG-RealSense]

The only other way that I know of for setting it in launch instead of rosrun would be to define it in a yaml configuration file and then import the yaml into the launch file, as described at https://github.com/IntelRealSense/realsense-ros/issues/2366#issuecomment-1147104915

[MartyG-RealSense]

hi @rakshith95 Do you require further assistance with this case, please? Thanks!

[rakshith95]

No, thank you.

[MartyG-RealSense]

Thanks very much @rakshith95 for the update!

[chenhanpolyu]

@MartyG-RealSense Hi, I am also facing with an auto exposure problem. I found that when I enable the laser emitter, my d435i cannot auto-exposure correctly. I test it with realsense-viewer. When I enable auto-exposure with emitter off, the actual exposure of infrared image can change with the lighting condition. But once I turn on the emitter (when the infrared camera is on), the actual exposure is freezing and will not change with lighting. In addition, when I turn on the camera with auto-exposure on and emitter on, the actual exposure is fixed at the maximal value at current fps (about 31400 us for 30 fps). I hope to confirm is this normal? Thank you!

[MartyG-RealSense]

Hi @chenhanpolyu How the depth auto-exposure should operate when correct is that exposure can update but the exposure value can no longer update until auto-exposure is disabled. Instead, depth auto-exposure should be read from the camera metadata parameter ACTUAL_EXPOSURE whilst depth auto-exposure is enabled.

[SamerKhshiboun]

Take a look on this PR #2612, it mainly for ROS2, but it should be the same solution for ros1 by editing your launch file.