Choosing Your Hardware
What’s your application? The segment pages below list, for common applications of ZED cameras, the camera, lens, options and host that usually fit, and the pitfalls to avoid. Every application has its own constraints, so use these recommendations as a starting point and check them against your requirements.
For a step-by-step selection of the camera (interface, depth range, lens, shutter and options), see Choose your camera. To choose the host for your cameras, see Choose your ZED Box.
Applications by segment
Rules that apply to most applications
- On anything that moves, choose a global shutter camera. A rolling shutter sensor distorts the image when the camera or the scene moves, which degrades depth, positional tracking and detection, and no software processing can fully correct it. The rolling shutter ZED 2i, ZED Mini and ZED X One 4K are best suited to fixed cameras and slow motion.
- Check the minimum depth before choosing a narrow lens. The narrow lens extends the range but raises the minimum depth: 1.0 m on the ZED X and 1.5 m on the ZED 2i, compared to 0.3 m with their wide lens.
- Several cameras extend the coverage, not the range. Fusing the data of several cameras covers a larger area and reduces occlusions, but each camera keeps its own depth range. To see farther, use a narrow lens or a wider stereo baseline.
- Passive stereo needs light and texture. ZED cameras do not see infrared light, so they need visible lighting in the dark. Uniform, dark, reflective or transparent surfaces, fog, dust and snow reduce the depth quality.
- Choose a Jetson Orin NX or AGX Orin to record. The Jetson Orin Nano has no hardware video encoder, so it encodes H.264 and H.265 SVO files on the CPU.
Need help?
Contact support@stereolabs.com with a description of your application: working distances, motion, environment and number of cameras.