Data Acquisition

Configuring the Ladybug5+ camera for use with SpatialExplorer and GPS time sync.

Launch LadybugCapPro. Click the Start Camera button to launch the camera selection menu:

LadybugCapPro Welcome Interface

Before connecting to the camera, click the Configure Selected button to configure camera parameters:

LadybugCapPro Camera Selection Interface

Click on the Trigger/Strobe tab to view the trigger and strobe options. To trigger the camera through rover, you must check the checkbox Enable/disable trigger. Under Pin Direction Control, verify GPIO 0 is set as In and GPIO 1 is set to Out. Under Strobe Control, verify the checkbox Enable strobe for this pin for GPIO 1 is checked, Polarity is set to Low, with a Duration of 10.00:

Trigger/Strobe LadybugCapPro Camera options

Once the camera parameters have been set, just close the Camera Control interface and click the OK radio button in the Camera Selection menu to establish the connection with the Ladybug5 camera:

Click OK to connect to Ladybug5 camera

In the main menu of LadybugCapPro, navigate to the GPS tab and select Start GPS Time Sync:

Customers were previously advised to use a SerialPortRedirector software and also select Start GPS Positioning. Neither the serial port redirector software, nor enabling GPS Positioning is still required. Using it is not harmful, but adds no value to the data in postprocessing.

Once GPS Time Sync has been enabled and the first images have been recorded, you should see that the GPS Time, PPS, and Quality bits in the status bar at the bottom are all set to 1. LadybugCapPro will notify you of No GPS position fix available - it's not necessary for LadybugCapPro to have GPS positioning, as the imagery will be timestamped per hardware.

GPS, PPS, and Quality bits MUST be set to 1 after acquiring the first images.

The camera requires 3 different signals for precise hardware time synchronization to work.

1. PPS (pulse per second) is an electrical pulse sent from the GNSS receiver to the camera on the exact start of each new second, once per second. The presence of this signal is indicated by the PPS field.

2. GPRMC/GPZDA is a NMEA sentence containing absolute time, sent from the GNSS receiver to the camera, also once per second. The presence of this message is indicated by the GPS Time field.

3. GPGGA is a NMEA sentence containing the GNSS reception quality indicator. This is used by the camera to check if the time in the GPRMC/GPZDA logs is valid at all. The presence of this message is indicated by the Quality field.

All 3 signals are configured by Phoenix LiDAR Systems at the factory, and need not be configured by the user.

Enable the camera to acquire a few images, and verify that GPS Time, PPS, and Quality are all set to 1! If only one is zero, the camera clock will not be synchronized, making the acquired imagery difficult or impossible to postprocess.

If only Quality is 0, ensure you have proper GNSS reception.

Set the Data Format to JPEG (12-bit) - GIS to acquire imagery with higher color depth:

Setting Data Format in LadybugCapPro

Depending on where you will be driving, select the appropriate Shutter range (Drive Highway, Drive City, Indoor, Low noise):

Selecting Shutter Range in LadybugCapPro

Drive Highway	Maximum shutter is set to as short as possible to prevent motion blur. Best used outdoors or images may be too dark. This is the default.
Drive City	Maximum shutter set for city driving speed (40 km/h or 25 m/h) to prevent motion blur.
Indoor	Maximum shutter is slightly longer than the driving modes, for use in indoor or lower light applications.
Low Noise	Maximum shutter range allowed for lowest noise. This may introduce motion blur.

Click the Record new stream radio button and choose a location to save the image stream. Once recording is in progress, you can activate the camera via SpatialExplorer (ACT):

Record new stream in LadybugCapPro