Why is the ZR300 not supported in librealsense2 ?

[MCart5]

Hello,

I would like to know why the ZR300 was dropped from v2 ? Is there any insurmountable blocker that would keep one from working in the kernel source to bring the ZR back to life ?

Has anyone else run into this -- v2 is important to us -- and we have a number of ZR's that are now unless.

Cheers,

Mark

[MartyG · Accepted solution]

Technically, there are similarities between the ZR300 and the 400 Series. They are both Stereo type cameras, and

may be used alongside each other without much interference (though not using the same SDK). Both can also use a form of Librealsense (1.12 \ Legacy for ZR300, 2.0 for 400 Series).

If the SR300 and its unique firmware can work with SDK 2.0, the ZR300 firmware probably could be made to do so too.

There are a number of problems though. It was probably easier to support SR300 because it works with both Windows and Linux, whilst ZR300 is Linux only, making it unsuitable for a multi platform SDK. Also, the ZR300 has ceased production, whereas the SR300 is still available as third party products (in the form of the Creative BlasterX Senz3D or the Razer Stargazer).

So whilst it may not be impossible for someone to write a custom version of SDK 2.0's source code to talk to the ZR300 firmware, Intel will not do so themselves, as the 400 Series and its eventual successor are the priority, going forward.

[MCart5]

Marty,

Thanks. I understand Intel's need to move on with the 400 series. If a developer sees this, perhaps a few breadcrumbs towards a solution on linux might would be welcome.

We tried Euclid...

It too is dead. I am beginning to see a pattern emerge that might not inspire one to place any reasonable effort into the hardware backing up librealsense.

Mark

[MartyG]

RealSense SDK 2.0 is the reason for confidence in RealSense's future. The development ecosystem was fragmented between Windows SDKs, Librealsense and the ZR300's RealSense SDK For Linux. A single open source SDK focuses Intel developer resources and the RealSense community, and sets up a smooth future transition to the next RealSense generation that will not have the upheaval that the transition to the 400 Series had when leaving those old SDKs behind.