1. Introduction

This application note explains how to use the USB Obsidian Thermal Camera with the Emcraft NAVQ+ (i.MX 8M Plus SoC-based embedded computer).

This functionality is available with the Emcraft NAVQ+ Release 1.1.5, or higher. Refer to https://emcraft.com/products/1222#releases for details.

2. Obsidian Thermal Camera

Obsidian Thermal Camera is a thermal VGA camera from Obsidian Sensors Inc, which is positioned as a low-cost thermal imager for automotive and security appliances. The camera implements a USB (UVC) Type-C interface, thus making it easy for connecting the camera to NAVQ+.

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3. Connecting Obsidian Thermal Camera

To connect the Obsidian camera to the NAVQ+, use an USB Type-C to Type-C cable and plug the camera into the USB1 port of the NAVQ+. By default, only the USB1 port can be used for connecting the camera, while USB2 is configured for using the NAVQ+ as a USB gadget.

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The following picture illustrates connection of the camera to the NAVQ+:

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4. Capture Video into a File

The Obsidian Thermal camera conforms to the USB Video Class (UVC) specification. Devices of this class are handled by the uvcvideo kernel driver, which implements the standard V4L2 API. Thus, a broad range of V4L2 compatible tools can be used for capturing video from the camera. The NAVQ+ BSP provides the GStreamer framework - one of the recommended tools for working with V4L2 cameras.

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