Release Notes

• What's New

  Nov 3, 2017

  The ZED SDK 2.2 release includes general performance improvements, a major update of the Unity plugin, new Python interface, support for CUDA 9 and JetPack 3.1, along with new features and bug fixes.

• 2.2.1

  Bug Fixes and Compatibility Update

  • Added support for Linux Kernel 4.14.
  • Fixed the Flip mode which should have been fixed in 2.2. It should now, hopefully, be fully functional. Really.
  • Fixed saving and loading calibration files for non-administrator users and usernames containing non-ASCII characters. You can now use the SDK without admin rights.
  • Updated Diagnostic tool.

• 2.2.0

  New Features

  General performance improvements

  • Improved depth computation performance by 20%. Reduced memory usage.
  • Improved positional tracking speed by 15%.
  • Updated internal SDK architecture to reduce and stabilize overall grab() time. 2.3 will further improve grab() time, especially for applications using depth and positional tracking.

  Major update of Unity plugin

  • The plugin has been completely refactored to simplify the creation of interactive AR applications.
  • Added Spatial Mapping to enable physical interactions with the real-world environment.
  • Updated VR Green Screen sample. Improved chroma key, VR controller support, general usability and fixed various bugs.

  SDK version detection

  • Applications that use the ZED SDK are now able to identify the installed SDK version before loading it.
  • When loaded by an executable, the ZED SDK now detects the expected ZED SDK version and self-adapt to ensure runtime compatibility.

  External CUDA context

  • SDK CUDA context can now be retrieved to allow context sharing within an application.

  Gravity orientation estimation

  • Real-world gravity orientation can now be estimated after mapping an area.
  • The dominant floor plane is extracted from the mesh and its normal is used to estimate the gravity vector.

  SDK

  Updated Video API

  • Improved real-time SVO playback mode. SVO will now always play at their capture frame-rate, not faster.
  • Fixed FLIP mode on NVIDIA Jetson boards
  • Fixed an issue affecting SVO recording on Linux.

  Updated Depth API

  • Reduced depth computation time by 20% and improved stability.
  • Reduced GPU memory usage by x2 in PERFORMANCE mode.

  Updated Positional Tracking API

  • Updated positional tracking behaviour. Tracking now always returns a camera pose, even when tracking state is "Searching..." or when saving an area file.
  • Fixed tracking reset. Reset tracking no longer freezes the application when calling disable/enable in a row.
  • Fixed tracking bug at high velocity. Tracking now correctly returns a pose when moving at high speed.
  • Fixed bug in Spatial Memory that would sometimes make the pose jump to an incorrect location.
  • Added Camera::saveCurrentArea() function to save an area file without having to disable tracking.

  Updated Spatial Mapping API

  • Improved Spatial Mapping API stability.
  • Added Mesh::getGravityEstimate() to estimate gravity vector using mesh.
  • Renamed SpatialMappingParameters::RESOLUTION parameter as MAPPING_RESOLUTION to avoid confusion with sl::RESOLUTION.
  • Renamed SpatialMappingParameters::RANGE parameter as MAPPING_RANGE.
  • Renamed MeshFilterParameters::FILTER parameter as MESH_FILTER.
  • Renamed SpatialMappingParameters::keep_mesh_consistent as use_chunk_only. This parameter allows to disable mesh update and speed up applications which only use chunk lists.
  • Renamed SpatialMappingParameters::invert_vertex_order as reverse_vertex_order. This parameter allows to retrieve mesh vertices in clockwise or counterclockwise order.

  General SDK changes

  • Simplified CMake files by using find_package().
  • Added Camera::getZEDSDKBuildVersion() and Camera::getZEDSDKRuntimeVersion() functions to allow SDK version detection at runtime. Applications on Windows are now able to check if a compatible version of the SDK is available before loading the SDK libraries.
  • Added InitParameters::sdk_cuda_ctx input to allow context sharing within an application.
  • Improved thread safety.
  • Improved ZED USB device detection on certain Windows 10 configurations.
  • Removed keep_occluded_point parameter in savePointCloudAs(). New behavior is set to keep_occluded_point = false.
  • Deprecated independent string conversion functions *2str() in favor of a new universal toString() one.
  • Fixed "Corrupted SDK" error message that would sometimes appear when opening the camera.

  Plugins

  Unity

  • Refactored plugin organization and architecture.
  • Added Spatial Mapping module to allow physical interactions between the virtual and real-world.
  • Improved chroma key in Green Screen sample. Matte edges are now much cleaner and sharper.
  • Improved PBS lighting in forward rendering mode.
  • Added AR post-processing shaders to enable realistic integration of virtual objects in video.
  • Added OpenGL support.
  • Added camera loading screen with error reporting.
  • Added callbacks reporting the camera status.
  • Fixed SVO reading speed when playing back recorded videos in Unity.
  • Fixed multithreading issue leading to crashes on computers with low resources.

  ROS

  • Updated wrapper to ensure compatibility with ZED SDK 2.2.
  • Removed X11 dependency to allow usage of remote ROS nodes without display.

  MATLAB

  • Updated interface to ensure compatibility with ZED SDK 2.2.

  Python

  • Added new interface to ZED SDK in Python (beta). Available on GitHub.

  Samples and Tutorials

  • SVO Export sample is now able to save 16-bit images of the depth from an SVO file.
  • ZED Depth Viewer: Fixed point cloud rendering and export issues leading to empty files.
  • Updated Diagnostic tool.

  Dependencies

  • Removed X11 on Linux to allow SDK access and control from a remote SSH connection.

  Platform Support

  • Added support for CUDA 9. Next updates will support CUDA 9 only, which drops support for Fermi cards.
  • Added support for JetPack 3.1.

  Known Issues

  • On certain configurations, VRCompositor in SteamVR can freeze when using HTC Vive and ZED. Disabling Async Reprojection in SteamVR can fix the issue.