03 Multi-Camera Control Tutorial

Learn how to build a C++ application that simultaneously controls multiple Sol3 camera modules with synchronized settings.

Prerequisites

Completed Getting Started
Completed SSH Setup
Completed Deployment Workflow

Overview

This tutorial shows how to build and deploy a multi-camera control application that runs on Sol3 hardware to configure and synchronize multiple cameras simultaneously.

Important

This application runs on the Sol3 device, not on your development machine. It requires deploying the application container to Sol3 hardware following the deployment workflow.

Tutorial Code

The SDK includes a complete multi-camera control tutorial at:

sol3-sdk/apps/tutorials/03_multi_camera_control.cpp

Note

This tutorial requires Sol3 hardware. The x64 mock camera server (see tutorial 01) serves only a single camera and cannot exercise the multi-camera flow.

How It Works

The multi-camera control application demonstrates coordinated control of multiple cameras.

The client:

Connects to the camera control shared memory endpoint
Creates control message outputs for each specified camera ID
Configures all cameras with identical settings (exposure, ISO, frame rate)
Publishes control messages simultaneously to all cameras
Supports both periodic capture and single snapshot modes

Build and Deploy

Step 1: Build Application Image

Build the ARM64 container image for Sol3:

sol3_build_app_image tutorial_03_multi_camera_control arm64 --cmake-preset arm64 --tag latest

Step 2: Deploy to Sol3 Device

Deploy the image to your Sol3 device:

sol3_deploy_app_image tutorial-03-multi-camera-control-arm64:latest <USER@HDK_IP>

Step 3: Run on Sol3 Device

SSH to the Sol3 device and run the application.

# SSH to device
ssh <USER@HDK_IP>

# Run the multi-camera control client
docker run --rm \
  -v /run/sol3:/run/sol3 \
  -v /dev:/dev \
  --privileged \
  localhost:5000/tutorial-03-multi-camera-control-arm64:latest <ARGS>

Usage Examples

All commands below run on the Sol3 device after SSH connection.

For brevity, the commands below use <MULTI-CAMERA-CMD> to represent:

docker run --rm \
  -v /run/sol3:/run/sol3 \
  -v /dev:/dev \
  --privileged \
  localhost:5000/tutorial-03-multi-camera-control-arm64:latest <ARGS>

Control Two Cameras

Configure cameras 1 and 2 at 5 FPS with default settings:

<MULTI-CAMERA-CMD> --camid 1 2 --fps 5

Control Multiple Cameras with Custom Settings

Set cameras 1, 2, and 3 with specific exposure and ISO:

<MULTI-CAMERA-CMD> --camid 1 2 3 --fps 10 --exposure_ns 20000000 --iso 400

Synchronized Snapshot

Capture a synchronized snapshot from all cameras at a specific time:

<MULTI-CAMERA-CMD> --camid 1 2 --abs-time $(date -d '+5 seconds' +%s)

High Frame Rate Capture

Configure multiple cameras for high-speed capture:

<MULTI-CAMERA-CMD> --camid 1 2 3 --fps 30 --exposure_ns 5000000 --iso 800