Imaging (sensors)

Hi, I'm trying the VL53L7CX sensor for a prototype and I'm trying the example codes provided within  this page https://www.st.com/en/embedded-software/stsw-img036.html I'm experimenting the Example_10_motion_indicator and I'm able to display the "motion power" of the 16 zones within a 10-iteration loop. I just can't figure out what the results mean ! Even when the sensor is totally masked (I mean, physically), the Motion powers seem to start at 0 for all zones (which looks relevant) and increase to apprently random values up to 50-something. Lacking information from the datasheet, I wonder how to use this data and what is its signification. Thanks for your help!

Hi everyone,I’m currently using the VL53L0X sensor to measure the liquid level inside a container, and I have a question regarding the offset calibration procedure described in the documentation.Is it really necessary to perform the offset calibration in this type of application, considering that I later apply a custom correction algorithm to compensate for systematic errors? I’d like to know if the calibration provides any meaningful improvement in accuracy when working with liquid surfaces, or if it would be redundant in my case.Additionally, if the offset calibration is required, should it be performed with respect to the liquid surface itself, or should I follow the recommended method using a white target as described in the official documentation?I’d appreciate any insights or experiences from anyone who has worked with ToF sensors in liquid level measurement setups.Thanks in advance!Edit: I am not using a cover glass with the sensor.

Hello,I have been using the this ToF sensor along an ESP32-WROOM MCU for a while without major issues. My impementation of the i2c interface seems to be working well since in most simple ranging cases everything works well.However, recently, i have been playing around with detection thresholds. I discovered that when I enable detection thresholds while in autonomous mode, I am unable to start ranging. In fact, the sensor gets properly configured (resolution, ranging mode, integration time, frequency and detection thresholds) but when it starts ranging (function vl53l8_start_ranging), error VL53L8_STATUS_ERROR occurs. The error gets raised in this part of the function  /* Read ui range data content and compare if data size is the correct one */ status |= l8_dci_read_data(p_dev, (uint8_t*)p_dev->temp_buffer, 0x5440, 12); (void)memcpy(&tmp, &(p_dev->temp_buffer[0x8]), sizeof(tmp)); if(tmp != p_dev->data_read_size) { status |= L8_STATUS_ERROR; }&nb

On page 9 of https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/vl53l1x.pdf, it is written:"Ranging is continuous, with a programmable delay between two ranging operations (called anintermeasurement period)"This is wrong. It should be:"Ranging is continuous, with a programmable delay between two ranging operations (called anintermeasurement, see Figure 9)"The "intermeasurement" and the "intermeasurement period" are two very different things, as shown in Figure 9 page 12. The "intermeasurement" goes from the END of a measurement to the start of the next one, whereas the "intermeasurement period" goes from the START of a measurement to the start of the next one.

Hello ST Brightsense Team,Would like to know if the VD66GY Linux driver (STSW-IMG503_V4L2) will work on an NXP IMX8M Mini (no hardware ISP) ?  If not will it work with the IMX8M Mini Plus (with Hardware ISP).Currently using the STEVAL-66GYMAI.In the STSW-IMG503_V4L2 package, the provided driver / device tree seems for the Raspberry PI, what would be the required changes for that to work on NXP IMX8 platform ? Is the vd56g3.json ISP tuning file required ( no libcamera installed, only using Gstreamer)... Thank you.

Hello,   I am having a hard time finding which software pack this file vl53l8cx_def.h is in? I think once I get that I should be get the zones if Im understanding the error correctly. Please advise.  If it helps with the solution I am trying to use the P-NUCLEO-53L8A1 and VL53L8CHV0GC to generate 3D point clouds.            

I need to cut off all the power supplys of VL53L8 to save power. Does the firmware need to be re-downloaded every time the device is powered on? loading firmware is in the function uint8_t vl53lmz_init( VL53LMZ_Configuration *p_dev)​

Hi everyone,I'm working with the VL53L0X sensor and have a couple of questions:Does noise affect the sensor's measurements? Does the sensor include a checksum or mechanism to verify the integrity of I2C messages? Can adding capacitors to the I2C bus help reduce noise interference?Thanks in advance for your help!

Good morning.I am trying to evaluate a P-NUCLEO-53L8A1 evaluation kit. I downloaded the software example from your website and am trying to carry out some tests with water and cofffee.I am wondering whether I could ask you another question to the GUI for the cup and liquid detection software. I seem to be able to detect the cup ok. Also the cup height and diameter measurements are ok. However, I struggle with the liquid level detection, using water or coffee (two liquids I got readily available) in a coffee mug. The issues I see are:- The measured liquid level is often too low in comparison to the actual fill level.- Often the measured fill level increases initially but then decreases even though the actual fill level increases monotonically. - Often, when the liquid level reaches the top of the cup, several of the pixels in the 8x8 ranging image are black without any value, while others show very large distance values (i.e. several times larger than the actual distance to th

I'm using several VL53L7CX sensors in a robotics application.  They work well except for when a retroreflective surface is present, which blinds the entire sensor, including SPADs not pointed at the retroreflective surface.  A large retroreflective area is not needed, only a few cm^2 patch.This is a big problem for us since industrial environments are full of retroreflective surfaces (e.g. safety vests, markings on the ground, etc.).I'm currently using the default values for sensitivity, sharpener, etc.  Any parameters you recommend tuning/adjusting to make this sensor more robust?

Hi ST Support. The VB1940 camera has IR smart upscale.I think IR smart upscale separates only the IR data from RGBNIR and compensates for any missing data.Is there a way to send IR data without interpolating this missing data (without changing the image size)?If possible, please tell me how to set it up. Best, regards.

Hello everyone,I’m evaluating ST ToF sensors (VL53L5CX / VL53L8CX) for an outdoor motion-tracking use case and would like to understand the general feasibility before investing in prototypes. Setup:A ToF sensor would be placed approximately at ankle height behind a moving person, facing upwards. The goal is to detect center-of-mass shifts and general arm/torso positioning while the person moves — not detailed skeletal joints, just coarse body-position indicators. Environment:Potentially strong sunlight and ambient IR exposurePossible water droplets, spray, and wet surfaces near the sensor (but not submerged)Target surfaces are typically dark fabrics or wetsuit-like materials at a distance of 0.5–2 m QuestionsGeneral feasibility – Can VL53L5CX or VL53L8CX reliably detect human body shape or coarse motion under these lighting and environmental conditions, or would performance degrade too much in direct sunlight and with occasional droplets on the cover glass?Environmental

I was looking to wire these 2 items together to acquire a LiDAR 3d point cloud data set for a research project im working. I wanted to get some input, feedback and guidance on utilizing this hardware for LiDAR 3d point clouds? VL53L8CHV0GCP-NUCLEO-53L8A1

Hi, I asked for help because my measurements took >> 15 seconds (up to 30s) in:https://community.st.com/t5/imaging-sensors/vl53l1-measurement-takes-up-to-30-seconds/td-p/843640Now after hours of debugging i found a bug in the API at least for platforms where an Integer is not 32 bit, in:vl53l1_core_support.c:114 the code is:pll_period_us = (0x01 << 30) / fast_osc_frequency; but on AVR uC like atmega644 0x01 is 16 bit wide. Which leads to pll_period_us = 0.The wrong value messes up all tim_cfg and gen_cfg, and introduces weird behavior.Fix:pll_period_us = (0x01UL << 30) / fast_osc_frequency;Telling the compiler to use unsigned long fixed the problem for me.This bug should be fixed to be more platform independent I suggest.Kind regards,Philip

Heya,  Is it possible to see the background light (intensity/histogram) without actually transmitting, using a VL53L8 or VL53L9?We don't want to measure the distance to objects. We just want to be able to use the SPAD array to get histogram for each zone. Its a high volume use-case, so would be great if we can achieve this. regardsShjayago

What's the difference between the following sensor variants:VL53L7CHVL53L7CXFrom what I've seen from going through the available product documents, they are all the same, performance-wise (range, frequency, FoV etc).Difference between the CH and CX seems to only be the firmware with the CH being able to output histogram data?Is this correct?Can the CH still output the normal processed data? 

The Ultra Light Driver (STSW-IMG023) init function vl53l5cx_init() fails in this section :/* Get offset NVM data and store them into the offset buffer */   status |= WrMulti(&(p_dev->platform), 0x2fd8,   (uint8_t*)VL53L5CX_GET_NVM_CMD, sizeof(VL53L5CX_GET_NVM_CMD));   status |= _vl53l5cx_poll_for_answer(p_dev, 4, 0,   VL53L5CX_UI_CMD_STATUS, 0xff, 2);The sensor does not answer with '2' as expected by _vl53l5cx_poll_for_answer. (The senosr answers '0')This results in a failed initialization.How can this be fixed?

Hi ST Support,A few datasheets for the BrightSense series, eg. um3224, show an option under CFG: Streaming readout mode control which is not precisely described in the documentation."-0x06: = XY binning x2"How does this differ from "-0x01: = digital binning x2"?The documentation says that digital binning is vertical+horizontal."Digital binning digitally combines every two pixels in horizontal and vertical directions to create the pixel output.This solution averages the pixel photoshot noise and improves the SNR without impacting the frame rate."Thank you!

Hello, I am working on a project using an AVR64DB32 MCU and the VL53L1 time-of-flight sensor over I2C.I downloaded the official API from ST (STSW-IMG007) and adapted vl53l1_platform.c to my environment.Since my I2C communication library is written in C++, I converted it into vl53l1_platform.cpp. I also wrote a simple distance measurement test program (main.cpp).My custom I2C driver (I2cDriver.cpp) is already used in other projects and seems reliable, so I assume the issue is not primarily there. I have attached these files for reference. The issue: Inside the while loop, I repeatedly call VL53L1_WaitMeasurementDataReady. If successful, I call VL53L1_GetRangingMeasurementData and then VL53L1_ClearInterruptAndStartMeasurement. In this case, I blink an LED once. If it fails with VL53L1_ERROR_TIME_OUT, I blink the LED twice. For any other error, I blink three times. After each loop iteration, whether success or failure, I wait one second before retrying. When running the program, I

Hi, I use 2 VL53L1 Sensoren via I2C for measuring distance. At first I used a raspberry pi and the provided API and it seems to work properly and all fine. Since I need to reduce my power consumption I migrated my Code to an atmega644 and therfore I use Atmel Studio for developing Code.Using this Controller I observe some strange behavior. Using the default setting, it takes around 30 seconds for a measurement to provide data, the interrupt show the same time frame. If I start a measurement immediately (continuous mode) it again takes ~30 seconds. If I start waiting 10 seconds delayed it takes around 20 seconds. So it seems the interrupt show measurment time is 30seconds. I tried to configure it, as well as time budget to 200ms. I also set long range mode explicitly and preset mode to autonomously.What i saw is the same behavior but with about 19 seconds not 30. So i started debugging and comparing. The lib seems to read some values from the Sensor at start up. Thes

Hello, I have a FUNDAMENTAL question: TOF VL53 series  sensors report a depth map. Is the depth the "Euclidean distance from the origin (0, 0, 0) to the point (X,Y,Z)" ? or is the orthogonal distance from the camera chip plane to the measured point along the optical axis?? if we use, x y, z  ( z is the sensor chip surface normal direction, i.e., the optical axis) to represent the measured point, the first case is depth^2= x^2+y^2+z^2, The second case is depth=z.Anyone can give me a concrete proved answer? Many Thanks to you in advance!!

Hi  I am using ST VD56G3 camera to capture .raw image from NXP IMX8m embedded board. I was able to capture the raw file using the following command. gst-launch-1.0 -e v4l2src device=/dev/video2 ! "video/x-raw, format=NV12, width=1120, height=1360, framerate=30/1" ! filesink location=video01.raw   However, captured images in raw file are overlapping. See the screenshot. There should be only one smoke detector in the image but it shows two smoke detectors. Please advise me.   Kind regards, Mickey    

Good morning. I am trying to evaluate a P-NUCLEO-53L8A1 evaluation kit. I downloaded the software example from your website and unzipped it. I then attached the eval board to a USB port on my laptop (running Win 11). It enumerates as a STLink VCP.     I then added the cup detect binary file to the evaluation board as described in the manual. The file copies into the folder specified in the user manual (also LD1 on the eval board blinks). When the copy process is complete, the folder then momentarily disappears and the re-appears with the file removed. When I then run the Cup Detect executable I get the following error Could you please advise how I can resolve this issue? I also tried running the GUI on two other laptops (one using WIN11, the other WIN10). On both laptops the GUI does not launch. Thank you very much.

I am attempting to write the platform code for the ULD to work with Zephyr. WrByte, RdByte, and RdMulti are running correctly, but the WrMulti function is throwing two types of errors:<err> i2c_nrfx_twim: Error on I2C line occurred for message 0<err> i2c_nrfx_twim: Error 0x0BAE0001 occurred for message 0. The second error appears to be an issue with NACK, but it seems strange that there is no NACK when writing a single byte (WrByte) and NACK is received when attempting to write more (WrMulti). I'm attaching the platform files in case someone could lend me a hand. Thank you in advance.

Hi all, I am new to STM32 programming. I have been able to write a driver for an ultrasonic distance sensor, flash the board, and measure distance, in Rust. Now, I am trying to get a STM32F401RE to talk to a X-NUCLEO-53L7A1 ToF sensor, connected via Arduino pins. I will eventually program it in Rust, but for the moment I am having trouble getting even the most basic functionality working with the C examples that go with the board. See e.g. https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/x-cube-tof1/tree/main/Projects/NUCLEO-F401RE/Examples/53L7A1/53L7A1_SimpleRanging I don't have a Windows machine available to be able to try out the suggested GUI. The USB connection from my computer to the board is through a powered hub, as earlier I noticed that without using the powered hub, the MCU would sometimes become unavailable (even without the sensor attached). The cable is USB-A to mini-USB (note: not micro). I updated the STM32F401RE firmware to latest. Without the sensor on top, the&n