dora-zed

Dora node for ZED stereo cameras. Publishes BGR images, point clouds and camera intrinsics.

Usage

Add to your dataflow:

nodes:
  - id: zed-camera
    git: ssh://git@gitea.liria.cl:5001/liria/dora-zed.git
    tag: v0.2.0
    build: scripts/build.sh
    path: bin/dora_zed
    inputs:
      tick: dora/timer/millis/100
    outputs:
      - image_bgr
      - point_cloud
      - camera_info

See dataflow.yml for a complete runnable example with a camera display node.

Dependencies

Dependency	Version	Notes
dora-rs	1.0+	Verified against dora-cli 1.0.1; the C++ bindings are built from source at configure time
CMake	3.21+
ZED SDK	5.x	Bundles OpenCV; default path /usr/local/zed
CUDA Toolkit	—	Required by ZED SDK
Rust toolchain	stable	Builds dora-rs C++ bindings

Installation scripts

Platform	Script
Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64	sudo scripts/install_linux_x64.sh
NVIDIA Jetson (ARM64)	sudo scripts/install_linux_arm.sh
Windows x64 (PowerShell admin)	scripts/install_windows.ps1

Windows: Install the ZED SDK manually from stereolabs.com.

Local build

git clone ssh://git@gitea.liria.cl:5001/liria/dora-zed.git
cd dora-zed
scripts/build.sh

Binary installed to bin/dora_zed.

scripts/build.sh is also the build: command in the dataflow. dora 1.0 runs build commands directly rather than through a shell, so cd, && and command substitution are not available there; keeping the sequence in one script is what makes the dataflow build work. It configures a Release build, which is also what links the optimized dora bindings.

Containerized build

Dockerfile provides the full toolchain — CUDA, ZED SDK and Rust — on Ubuntu 24.04, the newest release Stereolabs ships a ZED SDK for. No camera is needed.

docker build -t dora-zed-build .
docker run --rm --gpus all --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
    -v "$PWD:/src" -v dora-zed-cargo:/usr/local/cargo/registry dora-zed-build

The container runs the same scripts/build.sh.

The first run clones dora-rs and compiles it with Cargo; the named volume keeps that cache across runs. --user keeps build/ and bin/ owned by you rather than root.

x86-64 only. On Jetson, run scripts/install_linux_arm.sh on the device and build natively — there is no ARM64 image here.

Needs an NVIDIA driver and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit on the host, as the ZED SDK does anyway. The image sets NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,utility,video: libsl_zed.so links against NVDEC (libnvcuvid) and NVENC (libnvidia-encode), which the container runtime mounts from the host only when video is in the capability list.

Configuration

All behavior is controlled via environment variables.

Camera

Variable	Default	Description
ZED_RESOLUTION	720	720, 1080, or 2000
ZED_FPS	15	Frame rate
ZED_DEPTH_MODE	NEURAL	PERFORMANCE, QUALITY, NEURAL, or NONE
ZED_DEPTH_MIN_MM	10	Minimum depth (mm)
ZED_DEPTH_MAX_MM	500	Maximum depth (mm)
ZED_DEPTH_FILL	false	Enable depth fill mode
ZED_FLIP	ON	ON or OFF
ZED_WARMUP_FRAMES	30	Frames to discard on startup
ZED_RETRY_INTERVAL_SECONDS	5	Reconnection interval (s)

Point cloud

ZED_PC_MODE	Shape	Description
FULL (default)	[H, W, 4]	Full resolution grid (~14.7 MB/frame at 720p)
HALF	[H/2, W/2, 4]	Stride-2 downsample (~4× smaller)

Inputs

Input	Description
tick	Triggers a camera grab. Connect to dora/timer/millis/N.

Outputs

Output	Type	Description
image_bgr	uint8 [H, W, 3]	BGR image. Metadata: shape, encoding=bgr8, intrinsics, timestamp_ns.
point_cloud	float32 [*, 4]	XYZRGBA point cloud. Shape depends on ZED_PC_MODE. Metadata: units=mm, intrinsics.
camera_info	float32 [4]	[fx, fy, cx, cy]. Metadata: distortion coefficients.