Items with no label
3335 Discussions

Is IOS External Accessoires support for Intel RealSense D400 cameras planned or already possible?

AUhle
Novice
3,596 Views

I had a look into the Apple External Accessoires SDK and noticed that that the hardware manufacturer needs to register with Apple to make the SDK available with their hardware https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/featuredarticles/ExternalAccessoryPT/Introduction/Introduction.html# //apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009502 About External Accessories

Communicating with an external accessory requires you to work closely with the accessory manufacturer to understand the services provided by that accessory. Manufacturers must build explicit support into their accessory hardware for communicating with iOS. As part of this support, an accessory must support at least one command protocol, which is a custom scheme for sending data back and forth between the accessory and an attached app. Apple does not maintain a registry of protocols; it is up to the manufacturer to decide which protocols to support and whether to use custom protocols or standard protocols supported by other manufacturers.

As part of your communication with the accessory manufacturer, you must find out what protocols a given accessory supports. To prevent namespace conflicts, protocol names are specified as reverse-DNS strings of the form com.apple.myProtocol. This allows each manufacturer to define as many protocols as needed to support their line of accessories.

Note: If you are interested in becoming a developer of accessories for iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, you can find information about how to do so on http://developer.apple.com/ http://developer.apple.com.

Is this planned to be supported? I would love to write an app for the RealSense for several IOS devices And use the USB C to Lightning Cable to connect the camera to the device.

Cheers RobotMama

5 Replies
MartyG
Honored Contributor III
2,060 Views

The 400 Series can currently be used with rooted Android devices.

https://github.com/IntelRealSense/librealsense/blob/master/doc/android/Android.md librealsense/Android.md at master · IntelRealSense/librealsense · GitHub

The 400 Series cameras can work with any Intel or ARM processor. Apple's own mobile device chips are based on ARM 64, so in theory the 400 Series might be able to interface with them. Intel would certainly like RealSense to be everywhere possible and have designed the open-source RealSense SDK 2.0's API to be easy to integrate into a wide range of different platforms.

Apple is not against RealSense either, since it is fine with allowing an iOS version of the calibrator chart for the 400 Series to be on its store.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dynamic-target-tool/id1291448596?mt=8 ‎Dynamic Target Tool on the App Store

Technologically it may be possible. It probably comes down to whether Apple are willing to support connecting RealSense officially on their mobile devices (things are much easier with using the cameras on Mac computers, of course). I don't work for Intel though, so I have no official knowledge on the subject.

0 Kudos
AUhle
Novice
2,060 Views

Hey Marty,

thanks for your answer, the Android stuff is interesting. Currently I am looking into IOS and concerning the documentation I added in the original post, Intel needs to sign in as external accessoires manufacturer with Apple and support the right protocols to allow the data connection via cable.

You are perfectly right that Apple and Intel are most likely willing to work together. That's why I was hoping they are already working on providing the support for the toolkit and some Intel official could give some more feedback on this. Or maybe they didn't yet think about it and would consider adding it to support it in the future as the RealSense SDK is developing further.

Cheers RobotMama

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
2,060 Views

Hello RobotMama,

Thank you for your interest in the Intel RealSense D400 Series.

Currently, there is no plan to add iOS support. However, the Intel RealSense SDK 2.0 is supported on Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Thank you,

 

Eliza
0 Kudos
AUhle
Novice
2,060 Views

Hello Eliza,

thanks for the quick reply, though with a sad outcome.

Best Regards,

RobotMama

0 Kudos
Logibear
Beginner
2,031 Views

Please let me know if you find any resources regard this because I'm interested in building an IOS app with RealSense cameras. 

0 Kudos
Reply