Capture Stereoscopic Images and Video with the Raspberry Pi-Based StereoPi

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module was designed with industrial and automation applications in mind, but it can be tasked for much more, including a pair of cameras for grabbing stereoscopic images and video. That’s the idea behind the StereoPi — a carrier board, which can also be used for computer vision, drone, and robot projects. The open source board is compatible with all Compute Modules (1, 3, 3+) and runs Raspbian right out of the box.

The StereoPi boasts a pair of CSI camera ports (supporting OV5647 and Sony IMX 219 cameras), micro USB port, micro SD card slot, a couple of USB ports, 1X USB header, HDMI, Ethernet, SO-DIMM connector, 5V power connector, on/off power switch, boot mode jumper, and a 40-pin GPIO header — all packed into a 90 x 40mm footprint.

The StereoPi is versatile and has already been employed in some real world applications — such as pairing it with an Oculus Rift to render people in a third-person view, using it with ROS for simple depth-mapping, and stitching 360-degree panoramic images. Of course, the StereoPi can be used for a myriad of other applications, like building computer vision systems with OpenCV, live streaming video directly to YouTube from drone and robotic platforms, and even creating your own augmented and virtual reality systems.

Beyond Raspbian and ROS, the board can be programmed using Python, C, and C++, depending on the project. The StereoPi isn’t yet available, however a batch of them have entered pre-production and have been thoroughly tested, which means they will go on to post-production shortly and will soon appear on Crowd Supply.

UPDATE: StereoPi’s campaign has now launched on Crowd Supply, starting at $69 for the ‘slim edition’ and $89 for the ‘standard’ board. Starter and deluxe kits are also available for $125 and $199, respectively.